San Diego’s hottest March on record a likely glimpse into the future, climatologists say

The first three months of the year typically bring San Diego more than half of its annual rainfall. Instead, this year, San Diego experienced its hottest and one of its driest Marches since the late 1800s.

March’s atypical weather pattern could have implications for the future, climatologists say. Boosted by a mid-March heat wave that spiked temperatures in San Diego 15-30 degrees above seasonal norms, high temperatures never dipped below normal for a single day this month at San Diego International Airport, commonly used among meteorologists as a touchstone for the county as a whole.

Meanwhile, the airport received less than .01 inch of rain this March, compared to 1.46 inches in a typical March. And, while San Diego has been slightly wetter than normal for the water year, which starts Oct. 1, it has hardly seemed like a wet season. Rather, San Diego’s 9.62 inches of rain, so far, has been characterized by clusters of rainy days, followed by long breaks between storms. Nearly a third of the season’s rain came during the first week of 2026, with more than 2 inches on a single day — the first of the year.

That precipitation may be enough to keep San Diego County out of a drought for the next few months, but not likely for much of the West Coast, which will continue to see above-average temperatures and below-average rain into the next quarter, according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

March’s weather pattern — which included a 16-day streak of daily temperature records across San Diego County, and more than a dozen monthly records — reflects a broader climate trend across decades of data for California, and is an indicator of longer, more frequent, and more intense heat waves in the future, according to climatologists.

“I don’t think we should expect every day to be warmer as we move forward, or every season, every month,” said Fernando De Sales, a San Diego State geography professor who studies climatology. “But we should expect longer and more intense heat waves in the future, for sure.”

March’s heat would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change, according to a report by World Weather Attribution, an international group of scientists who study the causes of extreme weather events.

“It’s well established as well that emissions of greenhouse gases, such as CO2 and methane, will warm the planet, right? It won’t warm a specific region, but we warm the whole planet at different intensities regionally,” De Sales said. “So some places will see greater warming, some places not so much, and that will lead to more energy in the planet. So heat is energy. We use that heat, that extra energy to promote different phenomena, storms, heat waves, fires.”

More frequent and more intense heat waves can have detrimental impacts. For example, hotter and drier days mean more fire-prone vegetation and devastated crops, De Sales said. Hot stretches can also negatively impact vulnerable populations, particularly when temperature lows provide little relief overnight.

“What we know for sure is with warmer temperatures, we do have issues with health, especially in older folks and younger children that tend to appear more poorly under warmer conditions,” De Sales said.