Weather in Beijing in November

A good month. November is a solid month to be in Beijing. Highs sit at 11 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

November ranks 6 of 12 in Beijing: past the worst of the year but short of April, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain falls on only 2 days, so an itinerary with no wet-weather fallback is a reasonable risk. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 11 °C the difference between a good day and a miserable one is entirely down to what you are wearing.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 20 nights drop below freezing, so anything left outside stays frozen. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest November day reached 24.8 °C and the coldest night fell to -14.1 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 27 mm — roughly 193% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. November rainfall has ranged from 0 mm to 62 mm across the twenty years measured — a 62 mm spread around an average of 14 mm. The average is real but almost no individual November looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind is light at 7.4 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity is unremarkable at 55%.

How November sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 9.6 °C cooler than October, with December dropping another 7.6 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in November

November sits at the dark end of Beijing's year — 10 hours of daylight against 15 at midsummer, losing 1 hours across the month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

An inland climate

Beijing has no sea to moderate it, and it shows: 42.7 °C separates the hottest afternoon of the year from the coldest night. That is a genuinely continental range, and it means summer and winter here are barely the same place.

How busy it gets

Shoulder. The value months — prices ease off and you get the place closer to itself.

Crowd levels are estimated from climate desirability and school-holiday calendars, not from visitor numbers.

November in Beijing versus nearby

If Beijing is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Qingdao is close enough to be a coin toss — 2.2 °C warmer, 2 days more rain. Xi’an is a better bet in November — 4 °C warmer, 3 days more rain.

So: November is a compromise. April is 25 points better and is what Beijing is actually like at its best — worth moving the trip for if that is possible, and worth adjusting expectations for if it is not.

Every month in Beijing

See all twelve months in Beijing, or where else to go in November.