Weather in Leh in March

The month to avoid. March is the month most people should skip in Leh. Highs sit at 3.5 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

March ranks 12 of 12 — near the bottom of Leh's year. June is the month that works, and the swing between the two is 61 points, which is a different holiday rather than a slightly better one.

Rain falls on only 6 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 3.5 °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: 31 nights drop below freezing, so anything left outside stays frozen. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 16.5 °C and the coldest night fell to -27.5 °C.

This is the volatile part. March rainfall has ranged from 2 mm to 96 mm across the twenty years measured — a 94 mm spread around an average of 28 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 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 63%.

How March sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 4.8 °C warmer than February, and April adds another 5.9 °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 1.1 hours across the month. That is between Leh's extremes of 14.4 and 9.9 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

Leh has no sea to moderate it, and it shows: 40 °C separates the hottest afternoon of the year from the coldest night. That is a genuinely continental range, and it means summer and winter here are barely the same place. At 3502 m, altitude is doing as much work here as latitude: thinner air means fierce sun by day and heat that leaves the moment it sets.

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 Leh versus nearby

If Leh is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Srinagar is a better bet in March — 12.8 °C warmer, 4 days more rain. Shimla is a better bet in March — 14.9 °C warmer, 1 day less rain.

So: March is a compromise. June is 61 points better and is what Leh 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 Leh

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