Weather in Washington in March

Shoulder season. March sits in between. You will get good days and you will lose some. Highs sit at 11.6 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

March ranks 8 of 12 in Washington: past the worst of the year but short of October, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 9 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 11.6 °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 25.5 °C and the coldest night fell to -16.4 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 54 mm — roughly 64% 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 131 mm against 4 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 84 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 11.6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 79%, which at 11.6 °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: 5.1 °C warmer than February, and April adds another 6.5 °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 Washington's extremes of 14.9 and 9.5 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 34.4 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

How busy it gets

Shoulder. The value months — prices ease off and you get the place closer to itself.

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

March in Washington versus nearby

If Washington is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Richmond is the weaker option in March — 2.8 °C cooler, 11 days more rain. Philadelphia is the weaker option in March — within a degree on temperature, 1 day more rain.

So: March is a compromise. October is 26 points better and is what Washington 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 Washington

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