Weather in Philadelphia in March

A hard month. March is a hard month in Philadelphia, and worth planning around. Highs sit at 10.3 °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 Philadelphia: past the worst of the year but short of September, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 10 days, 4 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 10.3 °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: 18 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 24.5 °C and the coldest night fell to -21 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 61 mm — roughly 62% of the month's rain in one day.

March is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest March on record still delivered 205 mm against 20 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 99 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 8.8 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 80%, which at 10.3 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How March sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 5 °C warmer than February, and April adds another 6.8 °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 1.3 hours across the month. That is between Philadelphia's extremes of 15 and 9.4 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 34.9 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

How busy it gets

Quiet. Few other visitors, cheaper rooms, and a real chance some seasonal operators are shut.

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

March in Philadelphia versus nearby

If Philadelphia is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. New York City is close enough to be a coin toss — 3.4 °C cooler, the same number of rain days. Washington is a better bet in March — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain.

So: March is a compromise. September is 35 points better and is what Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia

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