Weather in Rotterdam in November

A hard month. November is a hard month in Rotterdam, and worth planning around. Highs sit at 10.1 °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 Rotterdam: 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: 16 wet days but only 2 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 10.1 °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: the day barely swings — 3.8 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest November day reached 17.5 °C and the coldest night fell to -3 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 28 mm — roughly 35% 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 142 mm against 13 mm in the driest. In a month this wet, even a tame spread is a lot of rain in absolute terms — the 81 mm average is a reasonable planning figure, not a promise.

Wind sits around 16.7 km/h — a steady breeze rather than a nuisance, and welcome on the warmer days, and humidity runs at 89%, which at 10.1 °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: 4.7 °C cooler than October, with December dropping another 3.5 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip.

Daylight in November

8.9 hours of daylight, losing 1.6 hours across the month. That is between Rotterdam's extremes of 16.7 and 7.8 hours, so days are long enough not to constrain the plan.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 12.5 °C in November — too cold to swim without a wetsuit. The sea peaks at 17.7 °C in August and bottoms out at 6.4 °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

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 Rotterdam versus nearby

If Rotterdam is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Breda is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 2 days less rain. Lille is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, 1 day less rain.

So: November is a compromise. June is 36 points better and is what Rotterdam 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 Rotterdam

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