Atlanta weather in April

April is Atlanta's bloom month — peak for the metro area's dogwoods and azaleas is usually 5 to 15 April, there is a Dogwood Festival built around it, and Piedmont Park is the forum's pick for actually seeing them. Temperatures are pleasant, near 21°C by day and 10 overnight, and crucially the summer humidity has not arrived yet, though regulars warn April can still turn cold on you. The honest catch, which the forum raises unprompted: early April is when Atlanta gets "bathed in yellow pollen". If tree or grass allergies are a factor, plan around it rather than be ambushed by it.

Regulars describe genuinely extreme swings possible within the same month - downright hot days in the 80s Fahrenheit alongside genuinely cold ones below freezing, though most days land somewhere comfortably in between. Our row backs the moderate average across that range, 18.2C over 7.6C nights feeling 4C, with 79mm of rain across 5.7 days. The standard packing advice reflects the real range rather than a single guess: a warm coat alongside shorts and t-shirts, with plenty of layers to add or shed as the day's actual weather reveals itself. The record: humidity 70 percent, 7.4 hours of sun, a 16.3 kph wind and AQI 42.

Locals call March unpredictable and give highs in the mid to upper fifties with lows in the low forties; our monthly average runs warmer at 19.6C over 8.7C, because their figures describe the start of the month and ours the whole of it. Either way they are right that it can produce both snow and seventy degrees. The end of March brings the azaleas, redbuds and dogwoods - and the pine pollen locals call the yellow curse, which coats everything into April and starts earlier here than visitors expect. Rain is the other feature, 120mm across 8.2 days with only 8.2 hours of sun. The record: humidity 69 percent, an 18.8 kph wind and AQI 44.

Locals put September here firmly in summer and give the slope: around 30C at the start of the month and nearer 26C by the end, muggy for most of it, with no reliable break until October. Their advice is simply to come late rather than early. Our row averages 29.4C reading as 31C at 70 percent humidity over 19.6C nights. Rain is 92mm across 4.6 days, so twenty millimetres at a time - afternoon thunderstorms rather than drizzle, and they clear. Anything walked outdoors belongs to the morning or the evening this month. The record: a dew point of 17.1C, 9.8 hours of sun, a 13 kph wind and AQI 55.

May is the month Atlanta regulars point to over the summer: the serious humidity does not arrive this early, because the city sits well inland, and late May is normally pleasant rather than oppressive - though the odd hot, muggy day turns up in early June. The pollen that gives the city its yellow spring and its reputation peaks in early April, so by May the worst of the tree season has passed. Our row is a warning about rain rather than heat: 107mm across 9.4 days, which is thunderstorm rain rather than drizzle. The record: 27.1C days that feel like 29C, 16.9C nights and 10.5 hours of sun.