Weather in Dubrovnik in March

Shoulder season. March sits in between. You will get good days and you will lose some. Highs sit at 14 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

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

Rain on 11 days, 4 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 14 °C the difference between a good day and a miserable one is entirely down to what you are wearing.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 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 21.1 °C and the coldest night fell to 0.4 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 85 mm — roughly 69% of the month's rain in one day.

March is moderately variable: 4 mm in the driest year against 289 mm in the wettest, around an average of 123 mm. Roughly two Marchs in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 15.2 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 75%, which at 14 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How March sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 2.1 °C warmer than February, and April adds another 2.9 °C. Late in the month feels noticeably different from the start of it, which is worth knowing if the trip is short.

Daylight in March

11.9 hours of daylight, gaining 1.4 hours across the month. That is between Dubrovnik's extremes of 15.3 and 9.1 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 14.3 °C in March — cold — a quick dip rather than a swim, and a wetsuit if you are in for longer. The sea peaks at 26 °C in August and bottoms out at 14 °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

Quiet. Few other visitors, cheaper rooms, and a real chance some seasonal operators are shut.

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

March in Dubrovnik versus nearby

If Dubrovnik is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Split is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain. Bari is a better bet in March — 2.1 °C warmer, 1 day less rain.

So: March is a compromise. June is 28 points better and is what Dubrovnik 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 Dubrovnik

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