Key West in April: Weather, Sea Temperature, Crowds and Things to Do

KEY WEST · APRIL · 24.55° N

April in Key West runs warm without running wet. The 1991-2020 normals at the island’s airport put the average high at 82.6°F and the average low at 73.1°F, with 2.07 inches of rain spread across a month that counts fewer than three wet days. The sea off the island averages 79.8°F. Hurricane season does not open until June 1. For a two or three night trip built around water, that combination does most of the work before you book a thing.

What April will not hand you is May’s bathwater. The sea gains nearly five degrees between the two months and pays for it with an extra inch of rain. April’s quieter advantage is light: 12 hours 47 minutes of it on the 15th, with the sun down at 7:50 p.m. Beach hours and the sunset crowd fit into the same evening.

On this page

• Average highs, lows and rain days in AprilThe April normals, and the station behind them
• Is the water warm enough to swim?Sea at 79.8°F, and the caveat that travels with it
• How busy Key West gets in AprilCrowds, the 11% room tax and parking rates
• Things to do in Key West in AprilFort Zachary Taylor, the Hemingway house, Dry Tortugas
• A two-day plan for the islandTwo days, hour by hour
• March or May instead?How the three months compare
• Is April a good time to visit?The verdict, and who should shift dates

Dates first: every number below belongs to April. The island year-round lives in our Key West guide, the drive south and the toll question in getting around Florida, the fort out west in our Dry Tortugas page, and the previous month’s normals a click back on Key West in March.

Key West weather in April: average highs, lows and rain days

Every figure here comes off a thermometer. NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information publishes the 1991-2020 monthly normals for station USW00012836, at Key West International Airport, and April reads 82.6°F by day, 73.1°F at night, 2.07 inches of rain for the month. That is a station record, not a gridded estimate, and the distinction is worth a degree or two on the overnight figure.

Rain arrives 2.8 days in the average April at a tenth of an inch or more, and 0.7 day brings an inch or more. Call it measurable rain about one day in eleven, and one genuine soaking in roughly seven Aprils out of ten. Most of it comes through in passes rather than gray afternoons, so put the outdoor half of a day in the morning and keep any fixed-date boat ticket early in the trip.

Nine and a half degrees separate the average day from the average night, so a Key West evening in April rarely asks for more than a shirt. Boats are the exception. A sunset sail or the 8 a.m. run west puts wind on wet skin for hours, and a light windbreaker is the only cool-weather item worth the suitcase space.

On April 15 the sun comes up at 7:03 a.m. and sets at 7:50 p.m. local time, 12 hours 47 minutes of daylight by sunrise-sunset.org’s calculation, converted from UTC. The Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square starts about two hours before sunset and runs until dusk has faded, so the jugglers and the cat-trainer are working by roughly 5:50 p.m. in mid-April.

Can you swim in Key West in April? Sea temperature and what it feels like

The sea surface off Key West averages 79.8°F in April, from the Open-Meteo Marine record averaged over 2015-2024. One caveat travels with that number: it is the mean of daily maxima, so it sits a shade warmer than a 24-hour average would. Early morning water reads a touch under 79.8, and a shallow, sun-warmed afternoon shoreline reads over it.

At that temperature most swimmers stop negotiating and walk in. Half an hour of snorkeling is comfortable without neoprene for the average adult, and kids last as long as the adults’ patience does. On a full day in and out of the water, a rash guard or a shorty keeps the third session as good as the first, which is the difference between a pleasant Dry Tortugas trip and a shivery one.

We could not verify a wind or wave series for April off Key West, so we give no figure for blown-out days. Two things we can state: the Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30 and peaks on September 10, putting April entirely outside it, and the ferry to Dry Tortugas sails daily at 8 a.m. with weather the one thing that cancels it. Book that crossing early in your stay so a scrubbed morning still leaves you a second date.

How busy is Key West in April? Crowds, the room tax and parking costs

April closes out Florida’s dry season, and it falls outside the hurricane window NOAA dates from June 1 to November 30. That is a calendar fact, not a price. We found no occupancy or room-rate series for Key West, so we crown no month expensive and none cheap. On cruise traffic, the 2020 referendum that capped disembarking passengers at 1,500 a day and barred ships carrying more than 1,300 people was nullified by SB 1194, retroactively, so no local passenger cap governs an April Tuesday.

What can be timed precisely is the boat. One ferry serves Dry Tortugas, the Yankee Freedom III, leaving at 8 a.m. with check-in before 7:30, and it sells out weeks ahead. Book it a month out at the very least, then build your nights around the date you get. Two nights covers the island itself, three lets the ferry day fail once and still happen. Flights land at EYW on the island, and the road alternative from Miami is about 155 miles and close to four hours without stops.

On the room, Monroe County levies a 5.0% transient rental tax, filed and paid alongside Florida’s 6% state sales tax, per Department of Revenue form DR-15TDT. Eleven percent on the nightly rate, and quoted rates rarely show it before checkout. Budget the 11% tax and read your confirmation for any resort fees.

The one line where money genuinely changes the month is how far your bed sits from your feet. Old Town is the largest wooden historic district in North America, flat and compact, made for walking and bicycles, and a car left inside it is metered: $3.00 an hour on the street, $6 an hour or $48 a day plus tax at the Old Town Parking Garage, $7 an hour or $48 a day at the Mallory Square lot with a ten-hour maximum, $5 an hour or $40 a day at the Key West Bight lot.

Things to do in Key West in April

April hands you 12 hours 47 minutes of daylight and water near 80°F, without May’s 3.12 inches of rain. That is what makes the long boat day sensible: 70 miles west to Dry Tortugas and back, on a month whose sky builds less often than the one after it. March gives a drier sky and colder water at 78.6°F, May gives 84.6°F water and 4.1 wet days, and April sits between them with the calendar still clear of tropical weather.

Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park holds the beach most people rank first on the island, and you can walk to it from Old Town: open 8 a.m. to sundown every day of the year, $2.50 on foot or by bicycle, $4.50 for a single-occupant car, $6.00 per vehicle for up to eight people plus a $0.50 county surcharge per person. The fort closes at 5 p.m. The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum takes walk-ins 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, $19 adult, $7 child, free under 6.

Those hours hold all year. April moves the light around them. Sundown on the 15th is 7:50 p.m., which leaves close to three hours of beach after the fort itself shuts at five, and by the time you walk back into Old Town the Sunset Celebration is already under way. Compared with March, the air has gained 3.0 degrees and the sea only 1.2: the month you feel first is the one on land.

Four good things cost nothing: the Duval Loop bus, free at 18 stops through Old Town, the Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square every night weather allows, the photograph at Mile Marker 0 on the corner of Whitehead and Fleming, and the flat grid of Old Town itself. Sources disagree on how often the Loop runs, from every 20 minutes between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. to every 15 minutes until midnight after a 6 a.m. start, so read the stop sign. It does not serve the airport.

Key West in April: a two-day itinerary

Day one follows the light. Sunrise is 7:03 a.m. in mid-April, so be at Fort Zachary Taylor when the gate opens at 8 and take the beach at its coolest. Walk to the Hemingway Home for its 9 a.m. opening, $19 at the door, no timed ticket. Lunch, then keep the flat part of the afternoon shaded, because 82.6°F in Key West comes with sea air and no relief at 2 p.m. Water again around four, Mallory Square by 5:50 as the Sunset Celebration starts, sunset at 7:50.

Day two belongs to the ferry if you secured a seat: check-in before 7:30 a.m., departure at 8, 70 miles west, with the 2026 adult fare around $250 covering park entry, snorkel gear, breakfast and lunch. If the crossing is canceled or you never got a date, take the day on two wheels through the wooden streets of Old Town and let the free Duval Loop close the gaps. Only 0.7 day in an average April brings an inch of rain or more, so a wet plan B rarely stays wet long.

Key West in April vs March and May

Daytime highs climb 3.0 degrees from March to April and another 3.3 into May. Rain is the sharper line: 1.53 inches in March, 2.07 in April, then 3.12 in May, and the count of wet days barely moves between March and April (2.9 against 2.8) before jumping to 4.1. The sea does the opposite of the rain and waits: 78.6°F, then 79.8, then a 4.8-degree leap to 84.6 in May.

Shift four weeks earlier and you trade half an inch of rain and 1.2 degrees of sea warmth for cooler evenings at 69.3°F. Shift four weeks later and the water becomes the headline at 84.6°F, paid for with an extra inch of rain and 1.3 more wet days, on a month that still ends before hurricane season opens. Swimmers who want the warmest possible water should take May with their eyes open; anyone planning long days outdoors will prefer April’s drier column.

Is April a good time to visit Key West?

Yes, if you are coming for water and walking. Days at 82.6°F, a sea at 79.8°F, 2.07 inches of rain and no tropical risk cover swimming, snorkeling, the ferry west and a full evening outdoors. No, if you need the warmest water of the year for hours of slow drifting over reef, or if you are counting on a quiet island: we have no occupancy data for Key West, so we can promise you the weather and not the crowd.

If the answer is no, May is the water month at 84.6°F, nearly five degrees above April, at the price of 3.12 inches of rain and 4.1 wet days. March runs the other direction with 1.53 inches, a sea at 78.6°F and nights down at 69.3°F, and its full set of numbers sits on our March page.

Of the three, only April puts a sea within a degree of 80°F alongside a rain column still under 2.1 inches, and gives you 12 hours 47 minutes of daylight to spend it in.

The last word

Book the Dry Tortugas ferry before you book anything else: one boat, 8 a.m., sold out weeks ahead. Everything else about April here forgives a loose plan. If you are driving down rather than flying into EYW, the road south of Miami starts on the Homestead Extension of Florida’s Turnpike, all-electronic with no cash booths, and only becomes US-1 at Florida City. From there it is 113 miles of Overseas Highway, mile markers counting down from about 126 to the zero at Whitehead and Fleming, roughly 2,370 miles from Fort Kent, Maine. Four hours without stops, six to eight with the stops you will make.

Sources & data for this guide

• April normals and the March and May figures · NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 monthly normals, station USW00012836, Key West International Airport · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Sea surface 79.8°F, mean of daily maxima 2015-2024 · Open-Meteo Marine API · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Daylight, sunrise and sunset for April 15, converted from UTC to America/New_York · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Hurricane season dates and September 10 peak · NOAA National Hurricane Center · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Transient rental tax of 5.0% filed with the 6% state sales tax · Florida Department of Revenue, form DR-15TDT · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Fort Zachary Taylor fees and hours · Florida State Parks · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Hemingway Home hours, admission and the museum’s own account of its cats · hemingwayhome.com · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Yankee Freedom III departure, check-in and 2026 adult fare · drytortugas.com · checked Sep 23, 2026 · fares change
• Parking rates · City of Key West Parking Department · checked Sep 23, 2026 · rates change
• Duval Loop stops and frequency · City of Key West and local guides · checked Sep 23, 2026 · sources disagree on the schedule, so we give the full range
• Cruise referendum of November 2020 and SB 1194 · Florida Politics and Seatrade Cruise · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Mile Marker 0 and the distance to Fort Kent · Atlas Obscura and Key West Travel Guide · checked Sep 23, 2026 · sources give 2,369 or 2,390 miles, so we round
• We found no occupancy or room-rate series for Key West, and no April wind or wave record, so we rank no month on price and give no figure for rough days.

To plan your stay

• Things to Do in Key West: Hours, Prices, Hemingway House and the Dry Tortugas Ferry
• Where to Stay in Key West: Old Town, New Town and What Parking Costs
• Key West Airport to Old Town: Transfers, Parking and the Drive from Miami
• What to Know Before You Go to Key West: Parking, the Free Duval Loop, Sunset and the Dry Tortugas Ferry

Nearby places

• Everglades National Park: The Complete Visitor's Guide
• Big Cypress National Preserve: Dark Sky Park, Swamp Buggies and the $100 ORV Permit
• Dry Tortugas National Park: Ferry, the $15 Entrance Fee and Camping on Garden Key