Weather in Québec in November

The month to avoid. November is the month most people should skip in Québec. Highs sit at 3.7 °C and the day is short; this is an indoors-with-excursions month, not an outdoors-all-day one.

November ranks 8 of 12 in Québec: past the worst of the year but short of September, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

Rain on 14 days, 3 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Layers, and a genuinely waterproof outer — at 3.7 °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: 22 nights drop below freezing, so anything left outside stays frozen. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest November day reached 17.5 °C and the coldest night fell to -18.5 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 31 mm — roughly 34% 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 135 mm against 18 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 90 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind is light at 4.7 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 90%, which at 3.7 °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: 8 °C cooler than October, with December dropping another 7.4 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in November

9.4 hours of daylight, losing 1.3 hours across the month. That is between Québec's extremes of 15.8 and 8.6 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

An inland climate

Québec has no sea to moderate it, and it shows: 41.3 °C separates the hottest afternoon of the year from the coldest night. That is a genuinely continental range, and it means summer and winter here are barely the same place.

How busy it gets

Off season. The genuine off season: cheapest by a distance, with the caveat that some tours and restaurants close entirely.

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

November in Québec versus nearby

If Québec is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Sherbrooke is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day more rain. Saguenay is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain.

So: November is a compromise. September is 53 points better and is what Québec 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 Québec

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