New Orleans (NOLA) weather in March

March sits inside what the forum calls one of New Orleans's two best windows — mid-March to mid-May, the other running early October to early December. Expect an average high near 22°C and lows around 15, warm enough that most people are in t-shirts and shorts by day. Hurricane season doesn't begin until mid-to-late June, so March is clear of it entirely. On crowds it's busy without being overwhelming: St Patrick's Day and Easter each bring a parade or two — a small taste of Mardi Gras — but nothing on the scale of Carnival, Jazz Fest or French Quarter Festival.

Regulars call this a genuinely fine time to visit, meaningfully cooler and less humid than the July-September stretch, with late October named as arguably the best weather the city sees until late November. Our row backs the pleasant, still-warm read, 28.1C reading as a hot 30C, over 18.9C nights, with 82.8mm of rain across a modest 4.2 days. Regulars are candid the swing within the month can be dramatic - one visitor's Halloween trip saw an 80-degree Fahrenheit day followed immediately by a 60-degree one - and recommend an umbrella or light rain gear on hand regardless, even though the month overall isn't particularly rainy. The record: humidity 75 percent, 9.4 hours of sun, an 18.5 kph wind and AQI 48.

February here is mid-sixties by day and mid-forties at night - our 20.4C over 11.4C is those two figures - with a better than even chance of rain and no promise about any of it: regulars remember carnival days near 80F and others below freezing. The line worth carrying is that the damp makes forty degrees feel like thirty, and our felt figures agree, 20C and 9C at 79 percent humidity. Rain totals 117.7mm across just 6.4 days, so eighteen millimetres at a time. Carnival moves with Easter, so look up where it falls before booking; the parades roll in the rain regardless. The record: 7.6 hours of sun, a 21.7 kph wind and AQI 36.

Perfect, hot, or monsoon is how one regular sums up April here, and our row explains the third word: 174.7mm falls across just 5.5 days, about thirty millimetres a time, so the rain that comes is a wall rather than a shower. The rest of the month is the reason people pick it - 25.8C reading as 27C, nights at 16.7C, and humidity at 75 percent, which is among the lowest this city manages. The other thing April brings is festivals, the French Quarter one mid-month and Jazz Fest at the end, and with them hotel rates that jump for those weekends. A 22.1 kph wind helps. The record: a dew point of 15.6C, 10.1 hours of sun and AQI 43.

New Orleans-forum threads on November weather describe two different months stitched together: early November running full sun, little rain, mid-70s Fahrenheit and genuinely low humidity, while a cold front or two can roll through bringing cooler, breezy, sometimes wet days, with the back half of the month turning colder still. Crowds follow a similar split - early and mid-November are called minimal, but Thanksgiving weekend draws one of the year's bigger crowds, driven partly by the Bayou Classic football game and its famously rowdy college-age visitors. The record: 21.5C days feeling like 22C, 12.9C nights, 102mm of rain across six days and 7.9 hours of sun - book the first half of the month for the 'full sun, little rain' version posters describe, not the tail end.