The past month of April was colder, wetter and gloomier than average and did not have a single "spring day" (with temperatures of 20°C or more) but 66.3 millimetres of precipitation more than average, shows a climatological overview by the Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI).
With an average temperature of 9°C last month, the average was below the normal value for April (10.4°C). With 18.4°C on 30 April, the second-lowest maximum temperature was also measured for an April month since 1991 – only in 1997, it was even lower at 18.2°C.
"Also striking: not a single spring day, with a maximum temperature higher than 20°C was registered in April," the RMI report said, adding that a regular April month usually contains 4.7 spring days. "The last time this happened was in 2016."
For the current period, this was only the fourth April month without any spring days. This has happened 40 times since the beginning of weather monitoring in 1892.
Persistent contrasts
Additionally, like January and March, April 2023 was also wetter than usual: 66.3 millimetres of precipitation was recorded last month compared to the average of 47.7 millimetres. However, with only five days of thunderstorm, there have been fewer storms than normal (8.1 days on average) in April.
With a total sunshine duration of 149 hours and 2 minutes, last month was considerably gloomier than average, when the sun shone for 171 hours and 16 minutes.
Belgium's gloomy April was in great contrast to several countries in southern Europe. Spain and Portugal's unusually early heat wave has not ended yet, with temperatures still expected to rise up to 37°C this week.
Last week, a record temperature of 38.8°C was measured in the Spanish countryside – the warmest temperature ever recorded in April. In Portugal, the mercury rose to 36.9°C, the highest April temperature in at least 78 years.
