Weather in Shanghai in March

Shoulder season. March sits in between. You will get good days and you will lose some. Highs sit at 14.6 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

March ranks 6 of 12 in Shanghai: past the worst of the year but short of October, 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 14.6 °C the difference between a good day and a miserable one is entirely down to what you are wearing.

What the averages hide

The averages here are honest — no hidden extremes worth planning around. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest March day reached 27.2 °C and the coldest night fell to -4.2 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 65 mm — roughly 74% of the month's rain in one day.

March is moderately variable: 34 mm in the driest year against 203 mm in the wettest, around an average of 88 mm. Roughly two Marchs in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 14.1 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 78%, which at 14.6 °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: 4.3 °C warmer than February, and April adds another 5.7 °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 hours across the month. That is between Shanghai's extremes of 14.2 and 10.1 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 10.1 °C in March — too cold to swim without a wetsuit. The sea peaks at 27.5 °C in August and bottoms out at 8.5 °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

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 Shanghai versus nearby

If Shanghai is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Hangzhou is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day more rain. Nanjing is a better bet in March — within a degree on temperature, 3 days less rain.

So: March is a compromise. October is 25 points better and is what Shanghai 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 Shanghai

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