Weather in Coffs Harbour in March

A good month. March works. It is not the peak, but nothing about it fights you. You should expect rain on 19 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

March ranks 12 of 12 — near the bottom of Coffs Harbour's year. August is the month that works, and the swing between the two is 22 points, which is a different holiday rather than a slightly better one. Worth keeping in perspective: March is the weakest month of Coffs Harbour's year and it is still a perfectly good one. The downside here is small.

Rain on 19 days, 5 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. 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: the day barely swings — 3.8 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 33.4 °C and the coldest night fell to 16 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 173 mm — roughly 85% of the month's rain in one day.

March is moderately variable: 42 mm in the driest year against 551 mm in the wettest, around an average of 203 mm. Roughly two Marchs in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 11.6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, 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: 26.5 °C in February, 25.2 here, 23.4 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

12.3 hours of daylight, losing 0.9 hours across the month. That is between Coffs Harbour's extremes of 14.1 and 10.2 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 25.3 °C in March — warm enough to stay in as long as you like. 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 Coffs Harbour versus nearby

If Coffs Harbour is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Armidale is close enough to be a coin toss — 2 °C cooler, 5 days less rain. Byron Bay is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days.

So: March is a compromise. August is 22 points better and is what Coffs Harbour 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 Coffs Harbour

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