Weather in Boston in November

A hard month. November is a hard month in Boston, and worth planning around. Highs sit at 10.2 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

November ranks 8 of 12 in Boston: past the worst of the year but short of September, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 10 days, 3 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 10.2 °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: 11 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest November day reached 22.7 °C and the coldest night fell to -12 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 52 mm — roughly 53% of the month's rain in one day.

November is moderately variable: 27 mm in the driest year against 243 mm in the wettest, around an average of 98 mm. Roughly two Novembers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 2.4 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 82%, which at 10.2 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How November sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 6.7 °C cooler than October, with December dropping another 6.1 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in November

9.8 hours of daylight, losing 1.1 hours across the month. That is between Boston's extremes of 15.3 and 9.1 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 10.4 °C in November — too cold to swim without a wetsuit. The sea peaks at 19.7 °C in August and bottoms out at 4.6 °C — water lags the air by a month or two, which is why the best swimming often comes after the best weather.

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 Boston versus nearby

If Boston is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. New York City is a better bet in November — within a degree on temperature, 2 days less rain. Bar Harbor is the weaker option in November — 2.5 °C cooler, 2 days more rain.

So: November is a compromise. September is 33 points better and is what Boston 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 Boston

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