Rain in French Polynesia in March

I know March is hot rainy season in French Polynesia - but how rainy??

I've looked on the wunderground.com but that just tells me precipitation. Can anyone give me advice on the pattern of rain? Is it likely to rain every day? Would is tend to rain for short period everyday or be cloudy all day? Or would it be sunny most of the day?

Basically, we want to go on a beach holiday. Are mad to try and do a beach holiday in March or is it likely it will only rain a bit?

I know there's no definite answers, but if anyone has more of a feel for the weather in March than I do, would be a massive help!!

My wife and I went there last March for 2 weeks for our honeymoon and loved it! It certainly was hot, particularly in the afternoon. The mornings and evenings were quite pleasant. The ocean is warmer this time of year also, which is where you'll be spending lots of your time. One of our days in Bora Bora was a complete rainout, but every other day we were able to enjoy the sunshine most of the day. Overall, we had the same concerns, but I wouldn't change a thing looking back on it. Go and enjoy! It's arguably the most beautiful place on the planet!

Hi cdanzig - thanks so much for your message, really appreciate the positive advice. We'll be going for a honeymoon too and we're really set on Polynesia. We don't mind a bit of rain, so long as it's not cloudy all day long. I think we might take the risk!

If you go to wunderground.com and type in Papeete you can scroll down that page to a section titled History and Almanac. If you choose a date in March 2012 it will take you to the page for that date - scroll down and it will show you the conditions for each hour of the day. You can see when it was raining or thunderstorms, etc. You can check consecutive days to get a better pattern and also check back a number of years. It is not a forecast for the future but by seeing the pattern over a period of time you can get a feel for what it might be like. You can also check out Bora Bora but you will only get the data in 3 hour periods throughout the day - still quite helpful. I don't know if other islands are covered but these two places should be enough as the other main islands are between these two places. Hope this helps!

Thanks newfie, I've been checking this out!

cdanzig - quick question. When you say last March do you mean March 2011 or March 2012? (I've been looking at the historical records and 2011 was much better in March than 2012!)

We went March 4, 2012 - March 16, 2012, and yes, it did rain a bit. However, it was far from unbearable and of all the days we were there, only one was a washout. Don't get me wrong...we were in Bora Bora and it was the first full day of our 4 nights/5 days there. I was quite nervous that we were going to be stuck inside the whole time, especially considering the cost. For us, it was perfect and very relaxing, so nice to be off the grid so to speak. One more thing, it's way prettier in person than any picture you've seen! My wife keeps asking to go back but we're doing the opposite vacation for our anniversary--India!