What the weather actually does
March is the month people mean when they say Scottsdale has perfect weather. Typical highs in the upper 70s, lows in the low 50s, twelve hours of daylight, and sun with real weight to it. The first week can still feel like February; the last week can throw an 85°F afternoon that hints at what April is going to do.
It is also, quietly, one of the wetter months, which in Scottsdale means about an inch total. A late-winter storm can bring a gray weekend; some years the March rains are what make the wildflowers, and some years there are no March rains and the wildflowers show up anyway because February did the work.
One thing that catches visitors every year: Arizona does not change its clocks. When the rest of the country springs forward in March, we effectively slide onto Pacific time. Check your flight and your dinner reservation.
What’s on
Cactus League Spring Training is the operating system of March. Scottsdale Stadium in Old Town and Salt River Fields at the eastern edge of town host games nearly every afternoon, and the crowds move through the city on a ballgame schedule: breakfast, first pitch, patio, dinner, repeat.
Mid-month stacks everything else on top. The Scottsdale Arts Festival takes over the Civic Center lawn, Scottsdale Art Week fills the galleries, and the Parada del Sol Rodeo delivers the last real cowboy event on the calendar. The Celebration of Fine Art tents strike in the final week after a ten-week run. Sunday A’Fair, the Old Town Farmers Market, and Thursday ArtWalk run all month.
All of that lands on top of college spring break, which arrives in waves for most of March. The pool decks at the big resorts know exactly what that means.
What to do
Go to a ballgame. Even if you do not care about baseball, a lawn seat on a weekday afternoon is the best-value hour of sun in the city, and Scottsdale Stadium puts you two blocks from Old Town when it ends.
Hike, this month above all others. The McDowell Sonoran Preserve is in bloom, the brittlebush turns the hillsides yellow, and the temperatures are ideal from sunrise to about 2 p.m. Follow the Gateway Loop protocols because the trailhead lot fills by mid-morning on weekends. Down in the flats, the Xeriscape Garden at Chaparral Park is at its annual peak and costs nothing.
Do the Arts Festival on Friday rather than Saturday. Walk it, then walk Old Town on foot to dinner.
Eat where the locals go when the tourists go to the Waterfront: Rancho Pinot, Virtù, The Mission. Reservations for all of them. Breakfast at Sugar Bowl is the correct pre-game move and always has been.
What to skip
Skip Old Town on the Saturday night of a spring break week. You know what it is. It is that.
Skip the 101 between Shea and the Salt River Fields exits within an hour of first pitch. Take Pima or Indian Bend.
Skip golf unless you have already booked it. March tee times are the priciest of the year and the good ones are gone; golf without a membership explains the workarounds, and one of them is called April.
Skip the idea that you can wing a resort. You cannot. Peak rates, peak occupancy, and the resorts know it.
The local’s calendar
For residents, March is the month of maximum ambivalence. The weather is the best it will be, the city is the most alive it will be, and it takes twenty minutes to get anywhere that used to take eight. Scottsdale Unified takes spring break in March, so local families are either out of town or competing with the visitors for the same pools and trails.
Traffic: the Loop 101 corridor from Shea to the 202 is at its worst on game days, and the Pima Road stretch past Salt River Fields gets its own special congestion. Old Town parking garages fill by early afternoon on weekends. If you are staying in Old Town, do not move the car; getting around Scottsdale covers the alternatives.
Pool season officially begins for residents sometime in the second half of March. Backyard pools are still cool, but the sun on the deck is warm enough that the water stops mattering. Resort pools are at full spring-break volume, DJs included at the ones that do that.
Rates: peak, all month, no exceptions. The snowbird population begins its slow exodus toward the end of March, but the spring-break and baseball crowds fill the gap. The first real drop in resort pricing usually arrives in mid-to-late April, after the ballparks empty. If your dates are flexible, the last week of March into the first week of April gives you March weather with the leading edge of April rates. The Boulders and Four Seasons up north are far enough from the ballparks to feel calm; the Phoenician and Andaz put you close to the action.
Coming from February, March keeps the weather and turns the volume up. Moving into April, the crowds thin, the heat arrives, and the deals begin.