AbstractHCMM satellite thermal imagery is used in a detailed frost assessment in an important horticultural area near Melbourne, Australia.Good general agreement is found to exist between plots based on night‐time HCMM data which show surface temperature differences across the study area and frost risk maps based on terrain and land cover. However, it is concluded that the HCMM data have insufficient spatial resolution for use in local frost mapping in the study area.Improved thermal resolution will make thermal imagery from future satellites an increasingly important tool in topo‐climatology. Without such improvements, local frost mapping will, in the absence of climatic network data or mobile topo‐climatological surveys, continue to depend on data from thermal scanners in aircraft and on detailed assessment of terrain and land