Weather in Sa Pa in November

Prime time. November is about as good as Sa Pa gets. Highs average 18.8 °C, lows 8.8 °C, and rain falls on 8 days — nothing in the month is working against you.

November ranks 3 of 12 in Sa Pa. Only February scores clearly higher, and the difference is small enough to be settled by price rather than weather.

Rain on 8 days, 1 of them heavy. Enough to need a plan B, not enough to need a plan around it. Nothing specialised needed — this is the month you pack for the trip rather than for the weather.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: it never really gets hot: not one day in an average November reaches 30 °C. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest November day reached 25.1 °C and the coldest night fell to -0.1 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 39 mm — roughly 78% of the month's rain in one day.

November is moderately variable: 8 mm in the driest year against 120 mm in the wettest, around an average of 50 mm. Roughly two Novembers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 2.5 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 81%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How November sits in the year

The month is on the way down: 2.9 °C cooler than October, with December dropping another 3.8 °C. The first week and the last are not the same trip. Rain has already shifted: 6 days fewer than October had.

Daylight in November

November sits at the dark end of Sa Pa's year — 11.1 hours of daylight against 13.5 at midsummer, losing 0.5 hours across the month. Sightseeing days are genuinely shorter, and an itinerary built for summer will not fit.

An inland climate

Despite being inland, the year stays fairly even: 22 °C between the year's warmest afternoons and coldest nights. At 1500 m, altitude is doing as much work here as latitude: thinner air means fierce sun by day and heat that leaves the moment it sets.

How busy it gets

Busy. Popular without being frantic; book the things you care about, improvise the rest.

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

November in Sa Pa versus nearby

If Sa Pa is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Hanoi is close enough to be a coin toss — 6.7 °C warmer, 1 day less rain. Luang Prabang is close enough to be a coin toss — 12 °C warmer, 3 days less rain.

So: November is effectively as good as it gets here — 4 points behind February, which is inside the margin where the weather stops being the deciding factor and price starts being it.

Every month in Sa Pa

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