April's Weather in Kāpiti: Warm & Sunny

Murray from Paraparaumu

Kāpiti and Levin were the warmest places in central New Zealand, with Kāpiti having the warmest April in nine years, giving us a five-month summer.

Our daily average maximum temperature was 20.4C, only the third time in over a decade we have reached 20 degrees. The longtime average is 19.4C, which was also last year’s average. Twenty degrees was recorded on 18 days, with the highest temperature of 26.4C on April 19, the warmest April day in 11 years, also the highest since early February. Levin’s maximum was a couple points higher at 20.8C, but Kāpiti’s overall mean temperature of 16.5C was the highest in central NZ, and half a degree above Levin.

The two-month drought ended with around 65mm of rain mostly in the first week, followed by further showers during the third week, giving a monthly total of 108mm, 40 above the historic average, but very welcome given how dry the soil was after the drought. The last week of the month was again dry and unusually warm and we were again looking forward to a good shower.

April's sunshine equivalent to 17 sunny days was exactly the historic average.

With May’s temperatures averaging around 17C we can no longer expect any summery days over 20C.

Photo: Sunrise on the warmest April day in 11 years