Weather in Bilbao in April

Shoulder season. April is shoulder season in Bilbao — cheaper, quieter, and a genuine gamble. Highs average 15.5 °C, lows 11.3 °C, and rain falls on 14 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

April ranks 7 of 12 in Bilbao: past the worst of the year but short of July, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

This is persistent light rain rather than storms: 14 wet days but only 2 heavy ones. It rarely cancels anything outright, and it rarely fully clears either. A jacket beats an umbrella. Pack for 15.5 °C days and 11.3 °C nights; the spread matters more here than any single number.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: the day barely swings — 4.2 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest April day reached 25.7 °C and the coldest night fell to 7.2 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 41 mm — roughly 51% of the month's rain in one day.

April is moderately variable: 22 mm in the driest year against 204 mm in the wettest, around an average of 80 mm. Roughly two Aprils in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 14.2 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 79%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How April sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 14.1 °C in March, 15.5 here, 17.8 in May. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in April

13.4 hours of daylight, gaining 1.4 hours across the month. That is between Bilbao's extremes of 15.4 and 9 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 13.3 °C in April — too cold to swim without a wetsuit. The sea peaks at 21.9 °C in August and bottoms out at 12.5 °C — water lags the air by a month or two, which is why the best swimming often comes after the best weather.

How busy it gets

Quiet. Few other visitors, cheaper rooms, and a real chance some seasonal operators are shut.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

April in Bilbao versus nearby

If Bilbao is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Gasteiz / Vitoria is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days. Gijón is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days.

So: April is a compromise. July is 26 points better and is what Bilbao is actually like at its best — worth moving the trip for if that is possible, and worth adjusting expectations for if it is not.

Every month in Bilbao

See all twelve months in Bilbao, or where else to go in April.