Weather in Hamburg in November

A hard month. November is a hard month in Hamburg, and worth planning around. Highs sit at 8 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

November ranks 9 of 12 in Hamburg: past the worst of the year but short of June, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

This is persistent light rain rather than storms: 14 wet days but only 1 heavy ones. It rarely cancels anything outright, and it rarely fully clears either. A jacket beats an umbrella. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 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: 6 nights fall below freezing; the day barely swings — 5 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest November day reached 19.5 °C and the coldest night fell to -7.6 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 30 mm — roughly 48% of the month's rain in one day.

November is moderately variable: 10 mm in the driest year against 122 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 is light at 11.4 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 93%, which at 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

The month is on the way down: 5.9 °C cooler than October, with December dropping another 4 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in November

8.7 hours of daylight, losing 1.7 hours across the month. That is between Hamburg's extremes of 17 and 7.5 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 24.3 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights.

How busy it gets

Quiet. Few other visitors, cheaper rooms, and a real chance some seasonal operators are shut.

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

November in Hamburg versus nearby

If Hamburg is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Bielefeld is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days. Groningen is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day more rain.

So: November is a compromise. June is 40 points better and is what Hamburg 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 Hamburg

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