Weather in Palmerston North in March

Prime time. March is about as good as Palmerston North gets. Highs average 21.9 °C, lows 12.5 °C, and rain falls on 10 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

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

Rain on 10 days, 2 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 30.5 °C and the coldest night fell to 5.7 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 50 mm — roughly 79% of the month's rain in one day.

March is moderately variable: 21 mm in the driest year against 126 mm in the wettest, around an average of 63 mm. Roughly two Marchs in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 12.6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 78%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How March sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 1.9 °C cooler than February, with April dropping another 3.3 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in March

12.4 hours of daylight, losing 1.3 hours across the month. That is between Palmerston North's extremes of 15 and 9.3 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 17.7 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights.

How busy it gets

Peak season. Expect the highest prices of the year and to be booking well ahead.

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

March in Palmerston North versus nearby

If Palmerston North is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Wellington is close enough to be a coin toss — 3.6 °C cooler, 2 days less rain. Taupo is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days.

So: March is effectively as good as it gets here — 2 points behind January, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Palmerston North

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