Weather in Palma in March

A good month. March works. It is not the peak, but nothing about it fights you. Highs sit at 15 °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 Palma: past the worst of the year but short of June, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 7 days, 1 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 15 °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 — 2.7 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 19.4 °C and the coldest night fell to 5.6 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 29 mm — roughly 81% of the month's rain in one day.

March is moderately variable: 10 mm in the driest year against 62 mm in the wettest, around an average of 36 mm. Roughly two Marchs in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind sits around 16.6 km/h — a steady breeze rather than a nuisance, and welcome on the warmer days, and humidity runs at 78%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How March sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 13.5 °C in February, 15 here, 17.2 in April. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in March

11.9 hours of daylight, gaining 1.3 hours across the month. That is between Palma'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 13.8 °C in March — too cold to swim without a wetsuit. The sea peaks at 26.3 °C in August and bottoms out at 13.5 °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

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 Palma versus nearby

If Palma is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Barcelona is a better bet in March — 3.3 °C warmer, the same number of rain days. Valencia is a better bet in March — 5.3 °C warmer, 1 day less rain.

So: March is a compromise. June is 24 points better and is what Palma 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 Palma

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