Florida in April: Weather by City, Sea Temperature and Spring Break Crowds

FLORIDA · APRIL · DRY SEASON

April is the month Florida’s daytime map nearly agrees with itself and its nights refuse to. The 1991-2020 normal high at Miami International is 83.6°F. At the Jacksonville gauge, the long-record station closest to St. Augustine, it is 79.8°F. Under four degrees separate them. After dark the state splits wide open: 73.1°F in Key West against 56.4°F in the northeast, nearly seventeen degrees inside one state line.

April also closes the dry season, which runs November through April before the wet half takes over from May to October. The practical effect is a calendar without the afternoon storm machine, and a month sitting entirely outside the Atlantic hurricane season (June 1 to November 30). What you trade for that is company: the state’s crowd peaks are holiday weeks and spring break, and spring break dates come from hundreds of separate school calendars, not one national week.

On this page

• April temperatures in Miami, Orlando and St. AugustineThe NOAA normals for six cities
• Dry season or wet season in AprilSeason dates and hurricane dates
• Sea temperature in April by coastAtlantic 79.6°F, Gulf 77.1°F
• How busy Florida is in AprilSpring break rules and booking
• Things to do in Florida in AprilEverglades, Vizcaya, PAMM with prices
• Where to go in Florida in AprilGulf, northeast and the Keys
• April compared with March and MayThe three months side by side
• Is April a good time to visit Florida?The verdict, and who should skip it

Every figure here comes from NOAA’s 1991-2020 monthly normals at named airport stations, not from a model reanalysis: Miami International (USW00012839), Key West International (USW00012836), Orlando International, Tampa International, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood, and Jacksonville International, the closest long-record gauge to St. Augustine. Sea temperatures come from a separate record, the Open-Meteo Marine series averaged over 2015-2024. The twelve-month view of all this lives on the best time to visit page.

Florida weather in April: average temperatures and rainfall by region

The gap that matters in April is vertical and nocturnal. Daytime highs across the six stations span 3.8 degrees, from 79.8°F at Jacksonville to 83.6°F at Miami and Orlando. Overnight lows span 16.7, from 56.4°F in the northeast to 73.1°F in Key West. The water widens it again: 71.8°F off St. Augustine against 79.8°F off Key West, eight degrees of ocean between two beaches in one state.

Read the table by column and the state sorts itself. Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Key West form one warm block with lows at or near 70. Tampa sits a notch cooler at night, St. Augustine belongs to the American Southeast more than to the tropics, and Orlando is the outlier of the set: Miami’s exact high, with a low 9.1 degrees under it, because no ocean is holding the heat overnight.

Totals mislead, so count the days instead. Miami logs 4.3 days in an average April with at least a tenth of an inch, St. Augustine 4.4, Key West only 2.8. Heavy days are rarer: 1.3 in Miami reach an inch or more, 0.6 in Orlando. Across a seven-night trip that reads as one soaked afternoon rather than a soaked week, with the totals landing on a handful of dates instead of spreading thin.

Pack for the spread, not the average. Orlando swings 22.9 degrees between its normal high and low, St. Augustine 23.4, Tampa 18.2. Key West swings 9.5, so nothing you wear at noon becomes wrong at midnight down there. North of Orlando a real layer earns its place in the bag for anything outdoors after dark, and a park morning starts colder than the beach afternoon that follows it.

Daylight on April 15 runs from 12 hours 47 minutes in Key West to 12 hours 58 minutes at the northern end, eleven minutes of difference across 450 miles of state. In Eastern time that puts Miami’s sunrise near 6:55 a.m. and sunset at 7:45 p.m., with Tampa holding light until 7:56 p.m. on the same date. The usable hour after dinner is the part people forget when they build the day around noon.

Is April in Florida’s dry season or wet season?

April is the dry season’s last month. Statewide, Florida runs November through April dry and May through October wet, and those dates are fixed on the calendar rather than renegotiated each year. April sits at the warm end of the dry half, which is why it carries more rain than January and less trouble than June.

On an afternoon, the difference is whether a 3 p.m. plan survives. Wet-season Florida runs a near-daily thunderstorm pattern; April’s 4.3 wet days in Miami mean most afternoons hold. The gauge at Miami International records 10.51 inches in June against 3.36 in April, and that ratio is the whole argument for the dry half of the calendar.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30 and peaks on September 10, with most activity between mid-August and mid-October, per the NOAA National Hurricane Center. April falls outside it. That is a fact about dates, not a promise about any given week of weather, and Florida can still deliver a wet gray Tuesday in the middle of a dry month.

At the booking stage this changes one thing. The refundable-rate hedge that earns its keep in September has no storm to guard against in April, so the constraint moves to demand instead of weather. Book the room and the car for the crowd calendar, keep the flexible rate for the cost of the room rather than the risk of the sky, and read what a Florida trip costs before you commit to the oceanfront.

Can you swim in Florida in April? Sea temperature by coast

Both coasts are swimmable, at different temperatures. The Atlantic side averages 79.6°F off Miami, 79.7°F off Fort Lauderdale and 79.8°F off Key West. The Gulf side off Tampa averages 77.1°F, two and a half degrees cooler and noticeably calmer. The northeast breaks the pattern at 71.8°F off St. Augustine, cold enough that most swimmers get in, get the photo and get out.

One caveat on those readings. They are the mean of daily maxima over 2015-2024, a shade warmer than a 24-hour mean, so read them as the best hour of a normal afternoon rather than the water at 8 a.m. The gap is not large, but it runs in one direction, and it matters most for a borderline number like the Gulf’s 77.1°F.

How busy is Florida in April?

April sits inside Florida’s busy half. The crowd peaks named on our twelve-month page are holiday weeks and spring break, and spring break is not a single week: dates come from hundreds of school and university calendars, and Easter moves. Miami Beach publishes its plan each winter. The 2026 version set flat rates of $40 to $100 in the four Art Deco District garages between 5th and 16th, and a non-resident towing rate of $548.

Those figures belong to 2026 and the city adjusts them annually, so check the current plan before you drive into South Beach. The same plan runs a traffic operation from 6 p.m. each Thursday through Sunday around South of Fifth and Flamingo Park, with garage closures and DUI checkpoints. For 2026 there was no blanket curfew and the beaches did not close at 6 p.m. On hotels, Miami Beach properties commonly add a nightly resort fee, published somewhere between about $25 on average and $35 to $95.

What cannot be put in a number here: no monthly visitor count by region, and no month-by-month price series. Market tracking, which is not an official statistic, puts hotel rates at their highest February through April and lowest August through October. Take that as a direction of travel rather than a quote, and compare bases on the where-to-stay guide instead.

Things to do in Florida in April

April buys a combination the summer cannot sell: a dry Everglades, 12 hours 50 minutes of daylight, and Atlantic water at 79.6°F. The marsh is still low, so the wading birds and alligators stay concentrated around the remaining water, and the wet season reopens the whole sheet on May 1. Manatee season has passed its winter concentration, which makes the springs a summer plan rather than an April one.

Everglades National Park charges $35 per private vehicle for seven days, and its three entrances sit at least an hour’s drive apart, so choose one and stay there. Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Coconut Grove opens at 9:30 a.m. with last admission at 4:30 p.m., closes Tuesdays, and charges $20 for adults during restoration work, $5 for ages 6 to 12. Perez Art Museum Miami is free Thursdays 5 to 9 p.m. and free all day on the second Saturday. Lummus Park, fronting Ocean Drive between 5th and 15th, costs nothing and never closes.

Where to go in Florida in April: best regions and beaches

The central Gulf takes the month on the numbers: Tampa’s 83.0°F days, 2.55 inches spread over 3.4 wet days, and a sea at 77.1°F that arrives with less swell than the Atlantic. That band includes Siesta Key and the St. Pete beaches, which is the case for putting a family week on the sunset side. Nights at 64.8°F still ask for a sweater on a restaurant terrace.

The northeast loses April for one group only. At 71.8°F water and 56.4°F nights, a beach week around St. Augustine is a compromise for swimmers. For anyone there to walk the Spanish old town, 79.8°F days across 4.4 wet days is close to the best the year offers, and the crowd that fills Miami Beach in this month is not standing in the same streets.

The Keys follow neither pattern. Key West posts the driest April of the six stations, 2.07 inches over 2.8 days, the warmest nights at 73.1°F, the smallest day-to-night swing at 9.5 degrees, and water at 79.8°F. The price is logistics: the drive down and back eats two days, and the Dry Tortugas ferry has to be booked as its own outing, since you cannot drive there.

One line to keep: Gulf and southeast for water, northeast for towns and walking, the Keys for the steadiest twenty-four hours in the state.

Florida in April vs March and May

What the calendar fixes is the season boundary, and April sits on the dry side of it with May on the other. Miami’s April normals, 83.6°F and 69.8°F over 3.36 inches, are the only figures this page carries for the comparison. The March and May normals belong to the twelve-month page, and inventing them here would be worse than sending you one click away.

Shift four weeks earlier and you land in the loudest calendar the state runs: the Miami Open from March 14 to 28, 2027, and Ultra from March 26 to 28 at Bayfront Park, three days of overlap included. Shift four weeks later and you cross into the wet season and its afternoon storms, six weeks ahead of the June 1 hurricane-season start, with a Gulf that has had another month to warm.

By profile it sorts cleanly. Event travelers and tennis crowds take March and accept the parking. Families take whichever week the school district hands them, and the kids guide covers the rest. Anyone building a trip around water and the Everglades takes April, the last month with a dry marsh and a 79.6°F Atlantic at the same time.

Is April a good time to visit Florida?

Yes for swimmers, wildlife travelers and anyone who wants a full outdoor day without a storm clause: both coasts above 77°F, no hurricane season, under five wet days at every station in the table. No for travelers hunting quiet and low rates, since April sits at the top of the demand calendar with holiday and spring-break traffic still in the system, and no for anyone whose beach plan is fixed on the northeast coast at 71.8°F.

If that lands on no, aim at early December. Hurricane season closes November 30, the dry season is already open, and the holiday weeks have not started. Build the route from the road-trip guide or the seven-day plan, both of which work the same in that window.

The last word

Choose the region before the hotel. The distance between an April in St. Augustine and an April in Key West is eight degrees of water and nearly seventeen degrees of night air, and no room upgrade closes that. Then get to the Anhinga Trail early, while the marsh is still low and the birds are still stacked around it. One number to carry out the door: the Miami gauge records 1.83 inches in January against 3.36 in April. The dry season is not flat, and April stands at its damp end.

Sources & data for this guide

• April normals for Miami, Key West, Orlando, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville (used for St. Augustine) · NOAA NCEI monthly normals 1991-2020, stations USW00012839, USW00012836, USW00012815, USW00012842, USW00012849, USW00013889 · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Sea surface temperatures, mean of daily maxima 2015-2024 · Open-Meteo Marine API · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Hurricane season dates and the September 10 peak · NOAA National Hurricane Center · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Sunrise, sunset and daylight length on April 15, converted to Eastern time · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Everglades entrance fee and entrance spacing · National Park Service · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Vizcaya hours and admission, PAMM free windows, Lummus Park access · vizcaya.org, pamm.org, City of Miami Beach · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Miami Beach spring-break parking, towing and traffic measures · City of Miami Beach, relayed by NBC 6, CBS News Miami and WLRN · these are the 2026 measures and the city republishes them each winter · checked Sep 14, 2026
• Editorial admission: no month-by-month price series and no regional visitor count are served here. The February-to-April hotel-rate peak comes from market tracking, not from an official statistic. Resort-fee figures diverge widely by source and category, so a range is given rather than a number.