Weather in Cape Town in March

Prime time. March is about as good as Cape Town gets. Highs average 21.1 °C, lows 17.7 °C, and rain falls on 4 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

March ranks 4 of 12 in Cape Town: past the worst of the year but short of February, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain falls on only 4 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Nothing specialised needed — this is the month you pack for the trip rather than for the weather.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: it never really gets hot: not one day in an average March reaches 30 °C; the day barely swings — 3.4 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 27.6 °C and the coldest night fell to 14.9 °C.

March is moderately variable: 5 mm in the driest year against 40 mm in the wettest, around an average of 17 mm. Roughly two Marchs in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind sits around 18.1 km/h — a steady breeze rather than a nuisance, and welcome on the warmer days, and humidity runs at 79%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How March sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 22.1 °C in February, 21.1 here, 19.6 in April. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in March

12.4 hours of daylight, losing 1.1 hours across the month. That is between Cape Town's extremes of 14.4 and 9.9 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 20.5 °C in March — swimmable, but it takes a moment to commit. This is the warmest the water gets all year.

How busy it gets

Peak season. Expect the highest prices of the year and to be booking well ahead. If the dates are flexible, April is the trade worth considering — 11 points weaker on weather, and materially quieter.

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

March in Cape Town versus nearby

If Cape Town is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Gqeberha is close enough to be a coin toss — 3.2 °C warmer, 4 days more rain. Pietermaritzburg is the weaker option in March — 6 °C warmer, 15 days more rain.

So: March is effectively as good as it gets here — 3 points behind February, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Cape Town

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