Weather in Gothenburg in April

A hard month. April is a hard month in Gothenburg, and worth planning around. Highs sit at 9.3 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

April ranks 6 of 12 in Gothenburg: past the worst of the year but short of July, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 10 days, 1 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 9.3 °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: the day barely swings — 5.2 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest April day reached 19 °C and the coldest night fell to -2.1 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 31 mm — roughly 57% of the month's rain in one day.

April is moderately variable: 13 mm in the driest year against 103 mm in the wettest, around an average of 54 mm. Roughly two Aprils in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 8.6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 83%, which at 9.3 °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 °C warmer than March, and May adds another 4.7 °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

14.3 hours of daylight, gaining 2.4 hours across the month. That is between Gothenburg's extremes of 18 and 6.6 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 21.2 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights.

How busy it gets

Shoulder. The value months — prices ease off and you get the place closer to itself.

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

April in Gothenburg versus nearby

If Gothenburg is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Århus is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days. Linköping 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 23 points better and is what Gothenburg 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 Gothenburg

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