Weather in Dunedin in November

Shoulder season. November is shoulder season in Dunedin — cheaper, quieter, and a genuine gamble. Highs sit at 13.8 °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 Dunedin: past the worst of the year but short of February, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 12 days, 1 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 13.8 °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: the day barely swings — 4.7 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest November day reached 21.9 °C and the coldest night fell to 4.6 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 32 mm — roughly 51% of the month's rain in one day.

November is moderately variable: 17 mm in the driest year against 126 mm in the wettest, around an average of 63 mm. Roughly two Novembers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind sits around 18.3 km/h — a steady breeze rather than a nuisance, and welcome on the warmer days, and humidity runs at 79%, which at 13.8 °C means damp rather than muggy — the kind of cold that gets into a coat and stays there.

How November sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 12.4 °C in October, 13.8 here, 15.2 in December. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much.

Daylight in November

14.8 hours of daylight, gaining 1.3 hours across the month. That is between Dunedin's extremes of 15.7 and 8.7 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 10.1 °C in November — too cold to swim without a wetsuit. The sea peaks at 13 °C in February and bottoms out at 8.7 °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. November is the value pick for Dunedin: it scores within 10 points of February without carrying February's prices.

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

November in Dunedin versus nearby

If Dunedin is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Papatowai is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 4 days more rain. Wanaka is close enough to be a coin toss — 3 °C warmer, 4 days more rain.

So: November works, with February the better month by 10 points if the dates can move. If they cannot, nothing here should stop you booking.

Every month in Dunedin

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