Weather in New Plymouth in March

Prime time. If you get to pick your dates, March is the one. Highs average 20.7 °C, lows 14 °C, and rain falls on 11 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

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

Rain on 11 days, 3 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: it never really gets hot: not one day in an average March reaches 30 °C. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 25.5 °C and the coldest night fell to 5.7 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 80 mm — roughly 99% of the month's rain in one day.

March is moderately variable: 27 mm in the driest year against 163 mm in the wettest, around an average of 81 mm. Roughly two Marchs in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 13.1 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: 21.7 °C in February, 20.7 here, 18.2 in April. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in March

12.4 hours of daylight, losing 1.3 hours across the month. That is between New Plymouth's extremes of 14.9 and 9.4 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 19.9 °C in March — swimmable, but it takes a moment to commit. This is the warmest the water gets all year.

How busy it gets

Peak season. Expect the highest prices of the year and to be booking well ahead. If the dates are flexible, November is the trade worth considering — 12 points weaker on weather, and materially quieter.

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

March in New Plymouth versus nearby

If New Plymouth is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Taupo is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain. Palmerston North is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain.

So: March is effectively as good as it gets here — 3 points behind January, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in New Plymouth

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