Weather in Ho Chi Minh City in November

Shoulder season. November is shoulder season in Ho Chi Minh City — cheaper, quieter, and a genuine gamble. The heat itself is manageable at 30.9 °C, but 84% humidity is what you will actually feel.

November ranks 3 of 12 in Ho Chi Minh City. Only December scores clearly higher, and the difference is small enough to be settled by price rather than weather.

Rain on 14 days, 3 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Natural fibres and a second shirt for the day. At 84% nothing dries, including you.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 23 days top 30 °C, making the heat continuous rather than occasional. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest November day reached 36.2 °C and the coldest night fell to 15.7 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 42 mm — roughly 42% of the month's rain in one day.

November is statistically steady but not small: the year-to-year variation is modest in relative terms, yet the wettest November on record still delivered 216 mm against 44 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 100 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 5.2 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 84%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How November sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 30.4 °C in October, 30.9 here, 31.1 in December. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain is the thing that moves: December brings 9 days less of it, so pushing the dates later buys drier weather.

Daylight in November

Ho Chi Minh City sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 11.6 hours in November, against a range of just 1.3 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 27.8 °C in November — warm enough that the water offers no relief from the heat. The sea peaks at 29.9 °C in May and bottoms out at 25.3 °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 Ho Chi Minh City versus nearby

If Ho Chi Minh City is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Vũng Tàu is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 3 days more rain. Cần Thơ is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 4 days more rain.

So: November is a compromise. December is 20 points better and is what Ho Chi Minh City 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 Ho Chi Minh City

See all twelve months in Ho Chi Minh City, or where else to go in November.