* Improvement in Jan, Feb moderated in March and April
* Total 4-month sales up 4 percent
* European sales up 8 percent, US sales rise 3 percent
* Expects H1 EBITDA to exceed last year's level
(Adds details)
By Padraic Halpin
DUBLIN, May 4 (Reuters) - Irish building materials group CRH expects this year's milder winter to push first-half sales ahead of 2010 when they were hit by severe weather.
CRH -- the leading asphalt producer in the United States -- on Wednesday said sales for the first four months of 2011 were 4 percent higher than the year-ago period.
Sales in Europe for the period to April 30 raced 8 percent ahead of last year, with sales in a tougher US market up 3 percent.
It said the improvement in the January and February, benefiting from much milder conditions, had moderated, as expected, through March and April.
French peer Saint Gobain, the world's largest building materials company, also said last week that it saw a rebound in residential construction in Europe while conditions in North American construction remained challenging.
CRH, also the No. 3 producer of construction aggregates in the US, said it expected earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) for the first half of the year to exceed last year's 520 million euros.
The group's first-half performance usually accounts for around one-third of its overall earnings. Four analysts polled by Reuters see EBITDA to June 30 rising 14 percent to 591 million euros.
Analysts see EBITDA increasing 12 percent to 1.8 billion euros for the full year. (Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Erica Billingham)