Weather in Chicago in April

A hard month. April is a hard month in Chicago, and worth planning around. Highs sit at 10.2 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

April ranks 8 of 12 in Chicago: past the worst of the year but short of September, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 12 days, 3 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 10.2 °C the difference between a good day and a miserable one is entirely down to what you are wearing.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 3 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest April day reached 22.9 °C and the coldest night fell to -4.4 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 53 mm — roughly 56% of the month's rain in one day.

April is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest April on record still delivered 177 mm against 31 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 94 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 15.7 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 81%, which at 10.2 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How April sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 5.3 °C warmer than March, and May adds another 4.8 °C. Late in the month feels noticeably different from the start of it, which is worth knowing if the trip is short.

Daylight in April

13.3 hours of daylight, gaining 1.3 hours across the month. That is between Chicago's extremes of 15.2 and 9.2 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 30.2 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

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 Chicago versus nearby

If Chicago is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Milwaukee is a better bet in April — 2.7 °C warmer, 1 day less rain. Grand Rapids is a better bet in April — 3.3 °C warmer, the same number of rain days.

So: April is a compromise. September is 36 points better and is what Chicago 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 Chicago

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