Weather in Cartagena in April

A good month. April works. It is not the peak, but nothing about it fights you. Highs average 30.3 °C, lows 26.6 °C, and rain falls on 11 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

April ranks 5 of 12 in Cartagena: past the worst of the year but short of January, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 11 days, 1 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Pack for 30.3 °C days and 26.6 °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: 18 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break; the day barely swings — 3.7 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest April day reached 33.5 °C and the coldest night fell to 25.3 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 71 mm — roughly 118% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. April rainfall has ranged from 9 mm to 238 mm across the twenty years measured — a 229 mm spread around an average of 60 mm. The average is real but almost no individual April looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind sits around 19.9 km/h — a steady breeze rather than a nuisance, and welcome on the warmer days, and humidity runs at 78%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How April sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 30.4 °C in March, 30.3 here, 29.8 in May. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain is the thing that moves: May brings 11 days more of it, so the earlier half of a flexible trip is the safer half.

Daylight in April

Cartagena sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 12.3 hours in April, against a range of just 1.2 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 27.6 °C in April — warm enough that the water offers no relief from the heat. The sea peaks at 29.3 °C in October and bottoms out at 27.1 °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 Cartagena versus nearby

If Cartagena is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Barranquilla is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 3 days less rain. Medellín is close enough to be a coin toss — 5.6 °C cooler, 14 days more rain.

So: April is a compromise. January is 21 points better and is what Cartagena 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 Cartagena

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