High pressure dominated the weather patterns during April bringing a lot of dry and sunny weather. After a warm start, with temperatures around 17 or 18 Celsius on the 1st, cold air and chilly winds from the east and north resulted in much lower temperatures for the remainder of the month.

Overnight clear skies also resulted in more frequent frosts. Despite the High pressure there were some weak weather fronts that crossed the district during the first half of the month bringing a scattering of light showers. Towards the end of the month low pressure moved south across the UK bringing some further showery rain across the district.

In terms of statistics:

Rainfall for the month totalled between 3 and 5mm in the Dawlish and Teignmouth area which is exceptionally low compared to the long term average (LTA) of around 60mm. There were between 24 and 27 dry days (LTA about 17), only 1 or 2 days with rainfall of 1mm or more (LTA 10) and there were no truly wet days. The highest totals depended on where showers fell and amounted to only 2 or 3mm. Following on from a drier than average March the amount of water in the soil has dropped below about 30% across much of SW England.

The temperature for the month averaged out around 8 Celsius, that's over a degree colder than average. The highest temperature of between 17 and 18 Celsius was on the 1st in most places. Lowest values were on the 7th when inland temperatures dipped to between minus 1 and minus 4 Celsius, whereas a few places right on the coast remained near or slightly above freezing. The average number of April air frosts in Teignmouth is 1 night every other year, but inland frosts are more common. Inland in Dawlish, however, there were around 8 nights with an air frost and in Netherton as many as 15 frosty nights. There was a risk of ground frost on between 12 and 25 nights illustrating the chilly nature of the month.

From the 22nd to the 26th easterly winds became very strong and produced rough seas for Dawlish and Teignmouth. The sea temperature at the Dawlish Wave Buoy warmed a degree to 11 Celsius by the end of the month.

Long term average sunshine is around 186 hours in Teignmouth. The electronically recorded value across the district was between 240 and 265 hours which fits quite well with the Met Office climate assessment that sunshine across SW England was about 40% above normal.