Weather in Kota Bharu in March

Shoulder season. March sits in between. You will get good days and you will lose some. The heat itself is manageable at 29.3 °C, but 82% humidity is what you will actually feel.

March ranks 2 of 12 in Kota Bharu. Only February scores clearly higher, and the difference is small enough to be settled by price rather than weather.

Rain on 13 days, 3 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Natural fibres and a second shirt for the day. At 82% nothing dries, including you.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 7 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break; the day barely swings — 3.9 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 32.9 °C and the coldest night fell to 23.3 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 68 mm — roughly 59% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. March rainfall has ranged from 10 mm to 555 mm across the twenty years measured — a 545 mm spread around an average of 116 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 is light at 8.6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 82%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How March sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 28.2 °C in February, 29.3 here, 30.5 in April. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in March

Kota Bharu sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 12.1 hours in March, against a range of just 0.7 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 28.6 °C in March — warm enough that the water offers no relief from the heat. The sea peaks at 30.5 °C in May and bottoms out at 27.7 °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

Shoulder. The value months — prices ease off and you get the place closer to itself. March is the value pick for Kota Bharu: it scores within 13 points of February without carrying February's prices.

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

March in Kota Bharu versus nearby

If Kota Bharu is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Ipoh is the weaker option in March — 2.1 °C warmer, 8 days more rain. Kota Kuala Muda is the weaker option in March — 2.4 °C warmer, 5 days more rain.

So: March works, with February the better month by 13 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Kota Bharu

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