Weather in Puntarenas in November

Shoulder season. November is shoulder season in Puntarenas — cheaper, quieter, and a genuine gamble. You should expect rain on 18 days of the month, which is more days wet than dry.

November ranks 4 of 12 in Puntarenas: past the worst of the year but short of December, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 18 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 85% nothing dries, including you.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 15 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break; the day barely swings — 5 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest November day reached 33.6 °C and the coldest night fell to 20.9 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 146 mm — roughly 111% of the month's rain in one day.

This is the volatile part. November rainfall has ranged from 42 mm to 540 mm across the twenty years measured — a 498 mm spread around an average of 132 mm. The average is real but almost no individual November looks like it, so treat the figure as the middle of a wide range rather than a forecast.

Wind is light at 7.3 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity at 85% is the real story though — it is the number that decides how the day feels, not the 29.8 °C.

How November sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 29.3 °C in October, 29.8 here, 30.9 in December. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain is the thing that moves: December brings 11 days less of it, so pushing the dates later buys drier weather.

Daylight in November

Puntarenas sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 11.7 hours in November, against a range of just 1.2 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 27.7 °C in November — warm enough that the water offers no relief from the heat. The sea peaks at 29.5 °C in April and bottoms out at 27.7 °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

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 Puntarenas versus nearby

If Puntarenas is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. San José is a better bet in November — 6.8 °C cooler, 4 days more rain. Liberia is a better bet in November — within a degree on temperature, 3 days less rain.

So: November is a compromise. December is 20 points better and is what Puntarenas 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 Puntarenas

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