Weather in Reno in March

Shoulder season. March sits in between. You will get good days and you will lose some. Highs sit at 11.5 °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 Reno: past the worst of the year but short of June, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 11 days, 3 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 11.5 °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: 14 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 24.2 °C and the coldest night fell to -11.4 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 38 mm — roughly 50% of the month's rain in one day.

March is moderately variable: 11 mm in the driest year against 184 mm in the wettest, around an average of 76 mm. Roughly two Marchs in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 6.2 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 71%.

How March sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 3.4 °C warmer than February, and April adds another 3.7 °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 Reno's extremes of 14.9 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 — 35.8 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage. At 1373 m the air is thin enough to matter — sun that burns faster than the temperature suggests, and nights that cool off quickly.

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 Reno versus nearby

If Reno is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Sacramento is a better bet in March — 7.1 °C warmer, 1 day less rain. Napa is a better bet in March — 6.3 °C warmer, 1 day less rain.

So: March is a compromise. June is 44 points better and is what Reno 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 Reno

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