Weather in Riverside in April

Prime time. If you get to pick your dates, April is the one. Highs average 25.6 °C, lows 10.7 °C, and rain falls on 3 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

April is the highest-scoring month of the twelve. The nearest rival is November, and the month at the other end of the year is September.

Rain falls on only 3 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Nothing specialised needed — this is the month you pack for the trip rather than for the weather.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 7 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest April day reached 38.2 °C and the coldest night fell to 2.4 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 29 mm — roughly 161% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. April rainfall has ranged from 0 mm to 91 mm across the twenty years measured — a 91 mm spread around an average of 18 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 is light at 7.1 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 57%.

How April sits in the year

The month is on the way up: 2.1 °C warmer than March, and May adds another 3.4 °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 hours of daylight, gaining 1 hours across the month. That is between Riverside's extremes of 14.4 and 9.9 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 29.5 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage. Within April itself the daily swing is 14.8 °C, so mornings and afternoons need different clothes.

How busy it gets

Peak season. Expect the highest prices of the year and to be booking well ahead.

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

April in Riverside versus nearby

If Riverside is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Irvine is close enough to be a coin toss — 7.8 °C cooler, the same number of rain days. Los Angeles is close enough to be a coin toss — 2.2 °C cooler, the same number of rain days.

So: April is the answer for Riverside. If it is booked out or priced out, November is the next best thing at 2 points behind, and September is the month to keep off the shortlist.

Every month in Riverside

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