Weather in Lyon in November

Shoulder season. November sits in between. You will get good days and you will lose some. Highs sit at 12 °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 Lyon: past the worst of the year but short of September, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 11 days, 2 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 12 °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: 5 nights fall below freezing. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest November day reached 21.6 °C and the coldest night fell to -5.7 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 66 mm — roughly 78% of the month's rain in one day.

November is moderately variable: 21 mm in the driest year against 160 mm in the wettest, around an average of 85 mm. Roughly two Novembers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 8.6 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 88%, which at 12 °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: 6.8 °C cooler than October, with December dropping another 4.3 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in November

9.5 hours of daylight, losing 1.2 hours across the month. That is between Lyon's extremes of 15.7 and 8.7 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

With no coast nearby, the year swings a fair way — 27.8 °C between the warmest afternoons and the coldest nights, wider than any coastal city at this latitude would manage.

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 Lyon versus nearby

If Lyon is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Annecy is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 2 days more rain. Chamonix-Mont-Blanc is the weaker option in November — 4 °C cooler, 2 days more rain.

So: November is a compromise. September is 30 points better and is what Lyon 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 Lyon

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