Weather in Cairns in March

A hard month. March asks something of you. Go in knowing what. You should expect rain on 23 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

March ranks 9 of 12 in Cairns: past the worst of the year but short of August, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 23 of the month's 31 days, 10 of them heavy. At that frequency a wet-weather backup is not a contingency, it is the itinerary — book the indoor things first and treat the clear days as the bonus. Natural fibres and a second shirt for the day. At 88% nothing dries, including you.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 8 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break; the day barely swings — 4.9 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 34.8 °C and the coldest night fell to 20.8 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 164 mm — roughly 42% of the month's rain in one day.

March is moderately variable: 111 mm in the driest year against 916 mm in the wettest, around an average of 392 mm. Roughly two Marchs in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity at 88% is the real story though — it is the number that decides how the day feels, not the 29.4 °C.

How March sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 30.4 °C in February, 29.4 here, 28.1 in April. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain is the thing that moves: April brings 5 days less of it, so pushing the dates later buys drier weather.

Daylight in March

12.2 hours of daylight, losing 0.5 hours across the month. That is between Cairns's extremes of 13.1 and 11.1 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 28.8 °C in March — warm enough that the water offers no relief from the heat. This is the warmest the water gets all year.

How busy it gets

Off season. The genuine off season: cheapest by a distance, with the caveat that some tours and restaurants close entirely.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

March in Cairns versus nearby

If Cairns is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Port Douglas is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days. Townsville is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 9 days less rain.

So: March is a compromise. August is 43 points better and is what Cairns is actually like at its best — worth moving the trip for if that is possible, and worth adjusting expectations for if it is not.

Every month in Cairns

See all twelve months in Cairns, or where else to go in March.