Madison, WI 53794 Frost Dates
Madison, WI: when does the frost end?
Around 05/01 is the usual last spring frost, about 246 days away. Fall's first freeze usually shows up around 10/09, roughly 161 days after the last spring frost.
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.
Stretching the season past the first frost
With roughly 6 weeks until Madison's first fall frost, a row cover or cold frame is what stretches the last few weeks of harvest here.
The actual range around Madison's last frost
05/01 is the middle of 30 years of NOAA records, not a promise. Getting tender plants in by 04/18 carries real risk, frost has hit that late in about 9 of 10 years here. Wait until 05/17 and only about 1 year in 10 sees frost after that.
Madison against the rest of the dataset
At roughly 161 frost-free days, Madison places 31,924 of 40,283 ZIP codes in this dataset. Within WI, it ranks 306 of 860.
Learn more
Before leaning on 53794's figures: zone vs. frost date explains why Zone 5b and Madison's frost date answer different questions, while the frost range explains how to read the range around Madison's dates instead of trusting one.