Madison, NJ 07961 Frost Dates
When can you plant in Madison, NJ?
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 04/18, roughly 233 days out. The first fall frost typically arrives around 10/27, about 189 frost-free days later.
Zone 7a (0 to 5°F average annual minimum) comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map; the frost dates above are the 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting NOAA station for Madison, not a forecast for this year.
What to do before the first frost
About 9 weeks of growing season left in Madison before the first fall frost — a cold frame or row cover can stretch harvest weeks past that date.
The actual range around Madison's last frost
04/18 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Plant by 04/03 and you're betting against frost in roughly 9 years out of 10. 05/06 is the safer bet, historically only a 1-in-10 chance of frost that late.
How Madison compares
At roughly 189 frost-free days, Madison places 21,444 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within NJ, it ranks 610 of 906.
Learn more
local microclimates covers what one yard in Madison can differ from the 07961 normal. zone vs. frost date covers why Zone 7a and Madison's frost date answer different questions.