Frost dates in China

Why frost dates vary across China

A national figure would be no use to anyone here. The growing season runs from 77 frost-free days at Lhoka to 351 at Qinzhou — a difference of 274 days, which is the difference between one tomato crop and none. That is why every date on this site is calculated for one place at a time.

Height is usually the reason. The places listed here span 1,099 m (3,606 ft) of elevation, from Bayan Nur at 1,050 m (3,445 ft) to Ordos at 2,149 m (7,051 ft). Air cools as it rises, and on still nights cold air also drains downhill and pools, so a valley floor frosts earlier and later than the slope above it. If your garden sits well above or below the nearest listed town, shade its dates by a few days in the direction of the height difference.

Latitude does the rest. This list reaches from Sanya in the south to Daxing’anling in the north, 34.1° of latitude apart. Distance from the sea matters too: coastal towns hold summer warmth into autumn and frost later, while an inland town at the same latitude can lose its season weeks earlier.

15 of the places here record no reliable air frost at all, so their rows read “none”. That does not mean nothing limits planting — heat, the wet season and day length take over as the constraint — and the crop pages say so where it applies.

How to read the table

Last frost is the median date of the final spring frost: in half of the years on record the last frost fell before it, in half after. First frost is the median date of the first autumn frost, and season is the number of frost-free days between them. All three are measured at the 0 °C air-temperature threshold.

A median is a planning date, not a guarantee. Plant tender crops on it and you accept roughly a one-in-two chance of a later frost in any given year. Each town page shows the cautious date — safe in nine years out of ten — alongside it, together with the earliest and latest frost the record holds. Read how the figures are calculated.