Weather in Turkey in April

April is spring in Turkey: milder, brighter, and built for outdoor days that are not beach days. The coast is ahead of Cappadocia and the east. Come for ruins, towns and trails. Come for the Lycian coast when the hills are green. Do not come for a guaranteed swim.

Istanbul and Antalya are both "coastal" on a map and nothing like each other in April. The Marmara is still a jacket city. The Mediterranean is already a walking holiday. A country-level pin hides that. Use it as a warning, then pick a region.

Average temp: 12°C
6–17°C

Rainfall: 49 mm
Not much rain

Sunshine: 6.4 h
hours per day

What to expect

Daytime

Comfortable for walking in the south and west: Ephesus, the harbours of the Datça and Bozburun peninsulas, old Antalya, the trailheads above Kas. Shade is useful by afternoon, not essential the way it is in July.

Inland and in the east a light layer still earns its place, especially after lunch when the breeze picks up and as soon as the sun drops. Cappadocia in April is a dawn balloon and a cold evening, not a terrace-all-day climate. Istanbul wants a coat you can take off, not resort kit.

Rain

The wettest months are receding. Showers still happen, more in the north and along the Black Sea than on the Mediterranean fringe. A spring squall on the Antalya coast is an inconvenience. The same weather in Rize is the month.

Sunshine is back in a way that makes outdoor plans realistic, which is not the same as a dry-season promise. Pack a shell that lives in the bag, not a holiday that assumes it will never come out. The monthly table on this page is the place for totals. This is the geography of who gets them.