Weather in Zanzibar in November

Shoulder season. November is shoulder season in Zanzibar — 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 9 of 12 in Zanzibar: past the worst of the year but short of July, which is the month to book if the dates are open.

This is persistent light rain rather than storms: 18 wet days but only 2 heavy ones. It rarely cancels anything outright, and it rarely fully clears either. A jacket beats an umbrella. Pack for 29.3 °C days and 26.6 °C nights; the spread matters more here than any single number.

What the averages hide

Averages flatten a month, and this one hides a few things: 4 days top 30 °C — hot spells arrive, but they break; the day barely swings — 2.8 °C between the overnight low and the afternoon high. Across the twenty years measured, the hottest November day reached 31 °C and the coldest night fell to 24.9 °C, and the wettest single day dropped 37 mm — roughly 37% of the month's rain in one day.

November is moderately variable: 20 mm in the driest year against 201 mm in the wettest, around an average of 101 mm. Roughly two Novembers in three land near that average, and the third does something else entirely.

Wind is light at 13.5 km/h, so the temperature on the page is close to the temperature on your skin, and humidity runs at 75%, high enough to notice on the warm days without dominating them.

How November sits in the year

Temperatures hold steady either side: 28.7 °C in October, 29.3 here, 29.7 in December. Nothing about the timing within the month matters much. Rain has already shifted: 6 days more than October had.

Daylight in November

Zanzibar sits close enough to the equator that daylight barely moves all year — 12.4 hours in November, against a range of just 0.7 hours across the whole calendar. Sunrise and sunset land at roughly the same time whenever you come.

Sea temperature

The sea sits at about 27.9 °C in November — warm enough that the water offers no relief from the heat. The sea peaks at 29.5 °C in March and bottoms out at 25.6 °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 Zanzibar versus nearby

If Zanzibar is one option among several, the nearby comparison is worth making. Dar es Salaam is close enough to be a coin toss — within a degree on temperature, the same number of rain days. Mombasa is the weaker option in November — 3.8 °C warmer, 1 day more rain.

So: November is a compromise. July is 36 points better and is what Zanzibar 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 Zanzibar

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