Madison, WI 53702 Frost Dates
Frost dates for Madison, WI, ZIP 53702
Typically, the last spring freeze lands around 05/01, roughly 246 days out. The first fall frost typically arrives around 10/09, about 161 frost-free days later.
Madison sits in USDA Zone 5b (-15 to -10°F average annual minimum). The dates above are NOAA's 1991-2020 normal at the nearest reporting station, a 30-year average, not a forecast.
What to do before the first frost
Zone 5b around Madison has about 6 weeks left before the first fall frost — that's the usual window to get a cold frame up if you want to keep harvesting past it.
The actual range around Madison's last frost
05/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Plant by 04/18 and you're betting against frost in roughly 9 years out of 10. 05/17 is the safer bet, historically only a 1-in-10 chance of frost that late.
How Madison compares
At roughly 161 frost-free days, Madison places 31,908 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within WI, it ranks 290 of 860.
Learn more
local microclimates explains what one yard in Madison can differ from the 53702 normal, and zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 5b and Madison's frost date answer different questions.