Weather in Rishīkesh in March

A good month. March works. It is not the peak, but nothing about it fights you. Highs average 30.5 °C, lows 16.2 °C, and rain falls on 5 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

March ranks 6 of 12 in Rishīkesh: past the worst of the year but short of November, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain falls on only 5 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Pack for 30.5 °C days and 16.2 °C nights; the spread matters more here than any single number.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 18 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 40.5 °C and the coldest night fell to 6.4 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 52 mm — roughly 153% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. March rainfall has ranged from 0 mm to 134 mm across the twenty years measured — a 134 mm spread around an average of 34 mm. The average is real but almost no individual March looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind is light at 6.8 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and the air is dry at 39% humidity, which makes the heat far more bearable than the same figure somewhere humid — and dehydrates you faster than you expect.

How March sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 5.8 °C warmer than February, and April adds another 6.3 °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 0.9 hours across the month. That is between Rishīkesh's extremes of 14.1 and 10.2 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 30.9 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage. Within March itself the daily swing is 14.3 °C, so mornings and afternoons need different clothes.

How busy it gets

Busy. Popular without being frantic; book the things you care about, improvise the rest.

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

March in Rishīkesh versus nearby

If Rishīkesh is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Shimla is a better bet in March — 12.1 °C cooler, the same number of rain days. Chandigarh is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days.

So: March is a compromise. November is 23 points better and is what Rishīkesh 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 Rishīkesh

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