April 2025 was Earth’s second-warmest April in analyses of global weather data going back to 1850, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, or NCEI, reported May 12. NASA and the European Copernicus Climate Change Service also rated April 2025 as the second-warmest April on record, behind only 2024. Data from the Japan Meteorological Agency and Berkeley Earth were not available at the time of this writing. Global temperatures in 2024 and so far in 2025 have been substantially higher than in any year prior to 2015.
Global land areas had their warmest April on record in 2025 and global oceans their second-warmest, according to NOAA. Asia had its warmest April on record; North America and Europe their fifth-warmest, Africa its seventh-warmest, Oceana its 13th-warmest, and South America its 18th-warmest. Northern Hemisphere snow cover during April 2025 was tied with 2024 for the lowest value recorded since 1967.
The contiguous U.S. had its 13th-warmest April, with nine states, mostly in the Southeast, experiencing a top-10 warmest April on record. Six states had a top-10 wettest April on record — Kentucky, Alaska, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, and Indiana. U.S. tornadoes in April numbered 350, with 37 being EF2 or stronger. The preliminary total of 724 tornadoes observed from January 1 to May 6 ranks as the second-highest year-to-date total since 2010, behind 2011 (1,284). Of the 35 U.S. tornado fatalities so far in 2025, about two-thirds (23) involved manufactured/mobile homes, part of a disconcerting long-term trend; out of the 54 people killed in 2024 by U.S. tornadoes, 33 were in manufactured homes.
The January to April global surface temperature ranked as the second-warmest in NOAA’s 176-year record. According to NOAA/NCEI’s statistical analysis, there is a 3% chance that 2025 will be the warmest year on record and a 39% chance that it will be the second-warmest, behind 2024. The year 2025 is very likely (> 99% chance) to rank among the five warmest years on record, NOAA said.
Neutral conditions (neither La Niña nor El Niño) prevail
The weak La Niña conditions in the Eastern Pacific that began in December ended in March, and neutral conditions are now present, NOAA reported in its May monthly discussion of the state of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. ENSO is a recurring ocean-and-atmosphere pattern that warms and cools the eastern tropical Pacific through El Niño and La Niña events that last from one to three years.
La Niña conditions did not persist for five overlapping three-month periods, which is not long enough to qualify as an official La Niña episode, according to NOAA’s definition. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology, which uses a more stringent threshold than NOAA for defining La Niña conditions, found that only a handful of weeks from December 2024 to February 2025 had Eastern Pacific sea surface temperatures cool enough to meet their threshold.
According to NOAA’s May forecast, ENSO-neutral conditions are likely (74% chance) through August 2025, and will likely continue through October (over 50% chance). For the upcoming Atlantic hurricane season (August-September-October), the April 21 forecast from the Columbia University International Research Institute for Climate and Society called for a 31% chance of La Niña, a 52% chance of ENSO-neutral, and a 17% chance of El Niño. El Niño conditions tend to suppress Atlantic hurricane activity through an increase in wind shear, but La Niña conditions tend to have the opposite effect. We are in the tail-end of the low-skill “spring predictability barrier” for ENSO (see this 2015 explainer from climate.gov), so the ENSO forecasts issued this month are of somewhat lower confidence than usual.
While El Niño events often last only one year (usually from northern fall to northern spring, as in 2023-24), La Niña events often restrengthen or recur across two or even three years in a row, as was the case from mid-2020 to early 2023. Over the last two decades (2005-2024), the peak three months of hurricane season have included five El Niño periods, seven La Niña periods, and eight neutral periods.
Arctic sea ice: ninth-lowest April extent on record
After beginning April in record-low territory, Arctic sea ice extent recovered somewhat during the latter part of the month. As a result, April 2025 ended up with the ninth-lowest extent in the 47-year satellite record, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, or NSIDC. The Arctic had its sixth-warmest April on record in 2025.
Antarctic sea ice extent in April was the 10th-lowest in the 47-year satellite record. The Antarctic had above-average temperatures in April.
On May 6, NSIDC announced that they would cut back on the amount of data they will provide in the future (see skeet below), which may force us to switch to an alternative source of sea ice data for future monthly updates. The Japanese and the Europeans both put out monthly sea ice products.
Notable global heat and cold marks for April 2025
Weather records expert Maximiliano Herrera documents world temperature extremes in remarkable detail and has provided us with the following info for April. Follow him on Bluesky: @extremetemps.bsky.social
- Hottest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: 49°C (120.2°F) at Nawabshah, Pakistan, April 17
- Coldest temperature in the Northern Hemisphere: -44.2°C (-47.6°F) at Summit, Greenland, April 1
- Hottest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: 44.6°C (112.3°F) at Violsdrif, South Africa, April 3
- Coldest temperature in the Southern Hemisphere: -78.6°C (-109.5°F) at Concordia, Antarctica, April 13
Major weather stations in April: one all-time heat record, zero all-time cold records
Among global stations with a record of at least 40 years, one set, not just tied, an all-time heat record in April, and no stations set an all-time cold record:
Puerto Princesa (Philippines) max. 37°C, April 23
Two all-time national/territorial heat records beaten or tied as of the end of April
- Maldives: 35.8°C (96.4°F) at Hanimadhoo, Feb. 27 (previous record: 35.1°C (95.2°F) at Hanimadhoo, March 24, 2024
- Togo: 44.0°C (111.2°F) at Mango, March 16 and April 5 (tie).
Twenty-six additional monthly national/territorial heat records beaten or tied as of the end of April
In addition to the two all-time national/territorial records set so far in 2025, (plus one nation that tied its record in two separate months), 26 nations or territories have set or tied monthly all-time heat records as of the end of April 2025, for a total of 29 monthly heat records:
- January (6): Cocos Islands. French Southern Territories, Faroe Islands, Maldives, Northern Marianas, Martinique
- February (3): Northern Marianas, Argentina, Togo
- March (6): French Southern Territories, Algeria, Saba, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia
- April (11): French Southern Territories, British Indian Ocean Territory, Latvia, Estonia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ireland
One nation set an all-time monthly cold record in 2025 Qatar in January.
Hemispherical and continental temperature records in 2025
- Highest temperature ever recorded in South America in February: 46.5°C (115.7°F) at Rivadavia, Argentina, February 4
- Highest minimum temperature ever recorded in South America in February: 30.8°C (87.4°F) at Catamarca, Argentina, February 10.
Bob Henson contributed to this post.
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