Weather in Cartagena in March

Prime time. If you get to pick your dates, March is the one. Highs average 30.4 °C, lows 26.1 °C, and rain falls on 3 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

March ranks 3 of 12 in Cartagena. Only January scores clearly higher, and the difference is small enough to be settled by price rather than weather.

Rain falls on only 3 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Pack for 30.4 °C days and 26.1 °C nights; the spread matters more here than any single number.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 20 days top 30 °C, making the heat continuous rather than occasional; the day barely swings — 4.3 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 33.6 °C and the coldest night fell to 24.5 °C.

This is the volatile part. March rainfall has ranged from 0 mm to 42 mm across the twenty years measured — a 42 mm spread around an average of 10 mm. The average is real but almost no individual March looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind sits around 23.9 km/h — a steady breeze rather than a nuisance, and welcome on the warmer days, and humidity runs at 75%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How March sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 30.3 °C in February, 30.4 here, 30.3 in April. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain is the thing that moves: April brings 8 days more of it, so the earlier half of a flexible trip is the safer half.

Daylight in March

Cartagena sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 12.1 hours in March, against a range of just 1.2 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 27.1 °C in March — warm enough that the water offers no relief from the heat. The sea peaks at 29.3 °C in October and bottoms out at 27.1 °C — water lags the air by a month or two, which is why the best swimming often comes after the best weather.

How busy it gets

Busy. Popular without being frantic; book the things you care about, improvise the rest.

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

March in Cartagena versus nearby

If Cartagena is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Barranquilla is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 2 days less rain. Medellín is the weaker option in March — 5.1 °C cooler, 21 days more rain.

So: March works, with January the better month by 7 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Cartagena

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