Florida in March: Weather by City, Sea Temperature and Spring Break

FLORIDA · MARCH · DRY SEASON

March hands Florida the second-to-last month of its dry season, and it hands the beach towns spring break. Both are true in the same four weeks. Where you land between them depends on which Florida you fly into: Key West holds a March low of 69.3°F while the gauge at Jacksonville International, the station covering St. Augustine, records an average of one night at or below freezing.

Florida is not one climate but several, and March is where that shows. Nighttime temperatures across the six main gateways spread over eighteen degrees, sea surface over eleven. The month itself is settled: dry season, no hurricane season, and a Miami rain total of 2.46 inches spread over a handful of days.

On this page

• Florida temperatures in March, city by citySix NOAA stations, highs and lows
• Dry season or wet season in MarchDry, November through April
• Sea temperature for swimming78.4°F Miami, 73.9°F Tampa
• Spring break crowds and Miami Beach parking rulesGarage rates, towing, traffic plan
• Things to do in Florida in MarchEverglades, Vizcaya, PAMM, Miami Open
• Which region suits MarchThe Keys, the southeast, the Gulf
• March vs February and AprilWhat four weeks change
• Is March a good month for Florida?Yes for swimmers, no for quiet

Every figure here is a 1991-2020 monthly normal from a named NOAA station: Miami International (USW00012839), Key West International (USW00012836), Tampa International (USW00012842) and Jacksonville International (USW00013889) among them, not a model grid. Sea temperatures come from a separate marine series. For the twelve-month picture, see when to visit Florida. The cities keep their own guides, Miami and Key West included.

Florida weather in March: temperatures and rainfall by region

The state’s gap runs north to south, and it lives in the nights. Key West averages a low of 69.3°F in March against 50.6°F at the northeast station, a spread of 18.7 degrees inside one state line. Daytime highs behave better: 80.6°F in Miami against 74.3°F up north, six degrees apart. That northeast gauge also logs one March night at or below 32°F in an average year, a figure no south Florida station produces.

Read across the six and you get a state that agrees on afternoons and argues about mornings. Miami 80.6°F, Fort Lauderdale 79.7, Key West 79.6, Orlando 78.9, Tampa 77.8, St. Augustine 74.3: seven degrees separate the warmest from the coolest at their peak. The lows scatter from 69.3°F down to 50.6°F. Choosing a region for the month, rather than choosing Florida for the month, follows directly from those two lines.

Rain in March arrives as an event rather than a condition. Miami’s gauge collects 2.46 inches over an average 3.5 days with at least a tenth of an inch, and 1.0 day with an inch or more. Key West is drier still, 1.53 inches across 2.9 such days. The northeast is the damp corner at 3.29 inches spread over 5.6 days. In a real week that reads as a soaked hour or an interrupted afternoon, not a written-off trip.

Pack for the swing, not the average. Orlando runs 78.9°F by day and 55.8°F at night, a 23-degree drop that turns a 9 p.m. park queue into a fleece situation. Key West barely moves, 79.6 to 69.3. St. Augustine’s 50.6°F nights want a genuine jacket, and that one freezing night is not a rounding error. South of Lake Okeechobee, a long-sleeve layer covers everything the month throws.

Daylight on March 15 sits at about 12 hours 03 minutes in Miami, Key West, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale, and 12 hours 02 in Orlando and the northeast. In Miami that means sunrise at 7:27 a.m. and sunset at 7:31 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time. A beach walk at seven still has sun on it, and dinner no longer has to be scheduled around the dark.

Is March in Florida’s dry season or wet season?

March sits squarely in the dry season. Statewide, the dry half runs November through April and the wet half May through October, which makes March the second-to-last month of the good stretch. Those halves are climatological, not a forecast, and the best-time guide lays them out month by month.

The practical difference is the afternoon clock. In the wet half, storms build on a near-daily schedule; in March they do not. The Miami gauge reads 2.46 inches for the month against 10.51 inches in June, the wettest month of its year. Falling water levels are also what concentrate wildlife at the remaining pools in the Everglades, so March is the month people photograph there (the park guide has the trails and the entrances).

The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30 and peaks on September 10, with most activity between mid-August and mid-October. March falls outside it. Treat that as a calendar fact and nothing grander: it promises no perfect week, and it does remove the variable that turns a September booking into a wager.

So when booking March, watch the room rate before anything else. Commercial rate trackers put the top of the hotel window between February and April, and spring-break weeks land inside it. Refundable rates matter less here than they do in the fall, while booking early matters more. Our cost guide shows where the money actually goes once parking and resort fees join in.

Can you swim in Florida in March? Sea temperature by coast

The Atlantic side takes the month. Off Fort Lauderdale and Key West the surface averages 78.6°F, off Miami 78.4. The Gulf at Tampa runs 73.9°F, close to five degrees cooler. Go north on the same Atlantic and it falls away: 67.6°F off St. Augustine, an eleven-degree spread between the two ends of one state. Swimmable is a personal threshold, but 78°F is a swim and 67.6 is a short one.

One caveat sits under those numbers. They are means of daily maxima over 2015 to 2024 from the Open-Meteo marine series, so each reads a shade above a true 24-hour average. A 7 a.m. swim off Miami Beach will feel cooler than 78.4°F, and a 3 p.m. one at the same stretch of sand will not.

How busy is Florida in March?

March is the loud end of the good season. Demand builds through the dry half from November to April, and commercial rate trackers place the highest hotel rates between February and April, the lowest between August and October. Add school spring breaks, spread over several weeks rather than one, and March collects the busiest beach weekends the state produces.

In Miami Beach the crowd comes with a rulebook. For spring break 2026 the city set flat rates of $40 to $100 at the four Art Deco District garages between 5th and 16th streets, from Washington Avenue to Ocean Drive, and raised non-resident towing in that district to $548. A traffic plan ran from 6 p.m. each Thursday through Sunday around South of Fifth and Flamingo Park. No blanket curfew applied and beaches did not close at 6 p.m. The city republishes the plan each winter, so check the current year before you drive in.

No official monthly visitor count exists for the state, and no official monthly price index either, so any label of March as cheap or dear is a market signal rather than a measurement. Two 2027 dates are firm and worth setting against your hotel search: the Miami Open at Hard Rock Stadium from March 14 to 28, and Ultra at Bayfront Park on March 26, 27 and 28, sitting on the tournament’s last three days.

Things to do in Florida in March

March does one thing the summer months cannot: it puts dry-season wildlife and swimmable Atlantic water in the same week. The sawgrass is drawing down, the reef water off the Keys is clear, and no afternoon storm clock cuts the day in half. Sunset at 7:31 p.m. in Miami buys an outdoor hour that January never offers.

Named, priced and timed: Everglades National Park charges $35 per private vehicle for seven days, with its three entrances at least an hour’s drive apart, so commit to one. Vizcaya opens Wednesday to Monday from 9:30 a.m., last admission 4:30 p.m., closed Tuesdays, $20 for adults and $5 for ages 6 to 12. The Pérez Art Museum Miami is free Thursdays 5 to 9 p.m. and free all day on second Saturdays, with art-making 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Lummus Park, the sand fronting Ocean Drive from 5th to 15th, is free, open around the clock and lifeguarded.

Where to go in Florida in March

South Florida and the Keys take the month outright. Key West posts a 79.6°F high, a 69.3°F low, 1.53 inches of rain over 2.9 wet days and 78.6°F water, the driest and most swimmable combination of the six stations. Fort Lauderdale sits just behind at 79.7°F and 2.38 inches, with the same 78.6°F sea and a shorter flight for most of the East Coast.

The northeast loses, and it loses for swimmers specifically. St. Augustine’s 67.6°F water and 50.6°F nights turn a beach day into a walking day, with one freezing night in the average March. For a Spanish old town on foot those same numbers are close to ideal: cool, 3.29 inches of rain over 5.6 days, none of the summer press. The St. Augustine guide covers the fort and the timing.

The Keys follow neither half of the state. Their 69.3°F nights run almost four degrees above Miami’s 65.6 and nearly twenty above the northeast, and their 1.53 inches is under half what the Jacksonville gauge collects. The water holds 78.6°F. What it costs is the drive down and a chain of islands with finite beds (Key West, plus Dry Tortugas for the boat day).

One line, if that is all you take: swim south of Palm Beach, walk north of it. The Gulf at 73.9°F is the middle path, cooler water traded for calmer, shallower swimming and beach towns that run no spring-break traffic plan (Siesta Key is the obvious one).

Florida in March vs February and April

Across the three, the dry-season status is the one thing that never changes. Miami’s March normals are 80.6°F by day, 65.6 at night, 2.46 inches of rain and 78.4°F water, with the Gulf at Tampa on 73.9. The same Miami gauge reads 1.83 inches in January and 10.51 in June, so March sits on the flat part of the curve, nearer winter than the wet season. February and April share that flat stretch. The best-time guide holds the twelve-month table city by city.

Shift four weeks back to February and you keep the dry season and the hurricane-free calendar while dropping most spring-break weeks, the Miami Open and Ultra with them. Shift four weeks forward to April and the dry season runs to its last day, with the wet half waiting in May. What no shift removes is the rate window: the trackers put all three months in the same expensive block.

Families tied to a school calendar take March and budget for the parking. Couples who want South Beach at conversational volume do better in February or the back half of April. Divers and Overseas Highway drivers should aim at April, still dry, still warm, and past the weeks when the road carries a college convoy.

Is March a good time to visit Florida?

Yes, with a condition attached to where you point the car. For Atlantic swimming, Everglades wildlife and a month with no storm season on it, March is among the strongest Florida has: 78.4°F water off Miami, 2.46 inches of rain, 3.5 wet days. For quiet, it ranks among the weakest. South Beach in March comes with $548 non-resident tows and garages at flat rates up to $100.

If quiet outranks everything, look at November and early December. Both sit in the dry season that runs November through April, and both fall ahead of the February-to-April rate window. The trade is the tail of the hurricane season, open until November 30. April’s last two weeks are the other answer, dry season intact and the spring-break traffic plans folded away for the year.

The last word

Choose the coast before you choose the dates. March gives the Atlantic side 78°F water and gives the northeast a swim most people will decline, and no reshuffling of the calendar closes an eleven-degree gap. Then, in Miami Beach, leave the car parked: the Metromover is free, a Metrobus or Metrorail ride is $2.25 with the day capped at $5.65, and the free trolley runs 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. every twenty minutes. Against a $548 tow, that fare cap is the cheapest decision of the trip.

Sources & data for this guide

• March normals for Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Key West, Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville (St. Augustine) · NOAA NCEI monthly normals 1991-2020, stations USW00012839, USW00012849, USW00012836, USW00012815, USW00012842, USW00013889 · checked Sep 10, 2026
• Sea surface temperatures · Open-Meteo Marine API, 2015-2024 mean of daily maxima · checked Sep 10, 2026
• Sunrise, sunset and daylight on March 15 · sunrise-sunset.org, converted to America/New_York · checked Sep 10, 2026
• Hurricane season dates and the September 10 peak · NOAA National Hurricane Center · checked Sep 10, 2026
• Everglades entrance fee and entrance spacing · National Park Service · checked Sep 10, 2026
• Vizcaya hours and admission · vizcaya.org · checked Sep 10, 2026 · adult price is $20 during restoration work
• Pérez Art Museum Miami free hours · pamm.org · checked Sep 10, 2026
• Miami Beach spring-break garage rates, towing rate and traffic plan · City of Miami Beach via NBC 6, CBS News Miami and WLRN · checked Sep 10, 2026 · these are the announced 2026 measures, reissued and adjusted each winter
• Miami Open (March 14-28, 2027) and Ultra (March 26-28, 2027) · miamiopen.com, ultramusicfestival.com · checked Sep 10, 2026 · dates given as subject to change
• Transit fares, fare cap, Metromover and the Miami Beach trolley · Miami-Dade County and City of Miami Beach · checked Sep 10, 2026
• Hotel-rate seasonality (highest February to April, lowest August to October) comes from commercial market trackers, not an official statistical series · treat it as a trend, not a price.