Albufeira in November: Weather, Sea Temperature, Crowds and a Two-Day Plan

ALBUFEIRA · NOVEMBER · THE ALGARVE

November hands Albufeira a 67.3°F afternoon and takes the light away at 5:23 p.m. The loungers thin out along Praia dos Pescadores, the long summer evening on the strip is finished, and the sea still reads 65.3°F, warm for the Atlantic this late in the year and cool for most American swimmers. That trade suits some trips and wrecks others, and the difference is usually whether you booked the week for the water or for the walking.

Nothing about the coast itself moves with the calendar: the ocher cliffs above Praia da Falésia are where they were in August, and so is the cave at Benagil. What changes is the arithmetic around them, 10 hours 14 minutes of daylight on the 15th, 6.6 days of measurable rain, and nights down at 53.4°F. Where to sleep, how many nights and how to get around belong to our Albufeira guide and the Algarve guide.

On this page

• Average highs, lows and rain days in November67.3°F days, 6.6 wet days
• Can you swim in Albufeira in November?The sea at 65.3°F
• Crowds, booking and the tourist taxLow season, and what we could not price
• Things to do in Albufeira in NovemberFalésia, the Old Town, the marina
• A two-day plan around 10 hours of daylightHour by hour, with a rain option
• November against October and DecemberHow the three months compare
• Should I move the trip four weeks?Who should, who shouldn’t

The whole-country calendar lives in our month-by-month verdict, and the trip budget in the Portugal cost guide. The figures below are November’s alone, dated and attributed, with the reading station named.

Albufeira weather in November: average highs, lows and rain days

Every figure here comes from IPMA, the Portuguese national weather service, 1991–2020 series, read at station 554 at Faro: a real thermometer 5.0 m above sea level, not a model grid cell. November averages a high of 67.3°F and a low of 53.4°F, with 2.97 inches of rain across the month. One caveat travels with the numbers. Faro sits at the eastern end of the Algarve while Albufeira is central, and nothing in that series describes the higher ground inland, which runs colder and considerably wetter.

Measurable rain falls on 6.6 days in an average November, roughly one day in five. Of those, 2.7 reach 0.39 inch or more, the sort of day that cancels a boat trip and fills the café windows instead. IPMA counts a wet day at 0.04 inch, not the 0.10 inch an American table uses, so its day count runs higher than a US chart would for exactly the same sky. Read the two thresholds together and the month looks like scattered interruptions rather than a rainy season.

Between the 67.3°F afternoon and the 53.4°F night there are 13.9 degrees, which is modest by American standards and quite enough to end a terrace dinner early three feet from the Atlantic. A fleece and a light rain shell cover most of the month. A swimsuit still belongs in the bag, along with one pair of shoes you don’t mind soaking on a cliff path. Our packing guide handles the rest of the list.

On November 15 the sun rises at 7:09 a.m. and sets at 5:23 p.m. local time, 10 hours 14 minutes apart. Dinner therefore happens in the dark, and anything with a view, a boat, a clifftop walk, a drive along the coast, has to be finished in the afternoon. Aim to be back at the car by 4 p.m. and the day works. Aim for 6 p.m. and you are driving unfamiliar roads in the dark for no gain.

Can you swim in Albufeira in November? Sea temperature and what it feels like

Off Albufeira the sea surface averages 65.3°F in November. That number is the mean of daily maxima over 2015–2024 from the Open-Meteo marine model, so it sits a shade warmer than a 24-hour average would, and it comes from a model rather than a buoy in the bay. Tables that average around the clock will print a cooler figure for the same water and the same month, and both can be right.

At 65.3°F the water is swimmable without being warm. The first thirty seconds take your breath, ten or fifteen minutes are comfortable if you keep moving, and your hands are cold on the walk back up the steps. Children last less than adults do. A shorty wetsuit turns the whole thing into an ordinary swim. The same model puts October at 67.3°F and December at 63.4°F, which leaves November almost exactly midway: 2.0 degrees below October, 1.9 above December.

We found no verified wave-height or wind series for Albufeira in November, so no swell figure appears here and none should be guessed. We could not verify lifeguard coverage outside the summer season either, which is worth one question at the hotel desk before anyone swims off an unpatrolled cove. Read the flags at the beach entrance and the forecast the morning of, as on any Atlantic coast in autumn.

How busy is Albufeira in November? Crowds, prices and the demand peak

November sits in the Algarve’s low season by the calendar, after the October shoulder and before the Christmas and New Year fortnight. We found no occupancy series and no monthly room-rate series for Albufeira, so we crown no month the cheapest and quote no percentage. What the calendar does support is the shape of the month: a coast running on a winter timetable, with the summer machinery idling rather than roaring.

For booking, the pressure moves from price to choice. Properties built for the summer strip work shorter seasons, and we could not verify which ones close for the winter, so confirm that the pool, the restaurant and the airport transfer are actually running on your dates instead of assuming. Two or three weeks of lead time (est.) usually finds a room in a month like this. A rental car is the tighter item, and our car guide covers the Faro pickup and the toll system.

We could not verify Albufeira’s municipal tourist tax, neither its rate, nor any cap, nor whether it applies in November at all, so no per-night amount appears. Ask about it at the moment of booking rather than at checkout, and treat any figure you see quoted on a forum as unconfirmed. The rest of the daily spend, meals, fuel and the drive from the airport, is laid out in the cost guide.

One upgrade genuinely changes this month, and it is the one that buys independence from the sky: a car, plus a hotel with heated water. With 2.7 days above 0.39 inch of rain and the light gone at 5:23 p.m., a car converts a gray morning into a drive to Tavira rather than a lost day indoors. We could not verify which hotels heat their pools in November, so get the answer in writing before you pay for the room.

Things to do in Albufeira in November

At 67.3°F a cliff path becomes a pleasure instead of an endurance test, and that is the month’s best argument. The ocher walls hold their color without the summer glare, the long sand walks that punish you in July fill a whole morning, and the clifftop routes west of town are usable from breakfast to mid-afternoon. Golf, walking and driving are the three things November does better than August, and the first two cost nothing.

The named targets are few and close. Praia da Falésia is the long ocher-cliffed strand east of town, wide enough that low season feels empty. Praia dos Pescadores sits directly under the Old Town, reachable on foot. The marina west of the center is where the cave boats and dolphin trips sell from, aimed at Benagil along the coast. We could not verify off-season sailings, prices or operating hours for any of the operators, so book direct and reconfirm your date.

The rock is identical in every month of the year. The air is what shifts, and in November it lands at 67.3°F while the sea holds 65.3°F, meaning the water is within two degrees of the afternoon. Getting out, not getting in, is the cold part. The low sun also drops the good light on the cliffs in mid-afternoon instead of late evening, which puts photography and the walk back to town in the same hour.

Most of what draws people here is free in November: the beaches, the clifftop paths, the Old Town squares, and a sunset at 5:23 p.m. that needs no reservation. We could not verify whether the beach parking lots charge outside the summer season, so budget for it and be pleased if the barrier is up.

Albufeira in November: a two-day itinerary

Day one runs on the light. Sunrise is 7:09 a.m., so there is no reward for starting before 8:30: breakfast first, then the clifftop walk east above Praia da Falésia from 9:30, while the air climbs out of its 53.4°F night. Down onto the sand by 11, into the 65.3°F water if you are going to, lunch at 1. Give the middle of the afternoon to the Old Town, take the 5:23 p.m. sunset from the cliff above Praia dos Pescadores, and eat at a civilized hour.

Day two goes west: the marina in the morning, then the boat toward Benagil if the sea allows and the operator is sailing, or the drive to Lagos and Ponta da Piedade if it is not. When the weather turns, and on 2.7 days in an average November it does, head east instead: Faro‘s old town and Tavira both absorb a wet afternoon. Start the return drive before 5 p.m. so the last stretch isn’t in the dark.

Albufeira in November vs October and December

The three months run one way. October is 6.6 degrees warmer by day than November and drier by 0.77 inch, with six wet days against 6.6. December takes another 4.5 degrees off the afternoon, adds 0.57 inch of rain and four-tenths of a wet day. The sea moves the least of anything in the table, about two degrees a month, and it leaves a neat coincidence behind: October’s water, at 67.3°F, is exactly November’s average air high.

Shift four weeks earlier and you buy a summer-shaped day, 73.9°F with 2.20 inches for the month and 60.4°F nights that keep a terrace dinner going. You pay in company on the sand. Shift four weeks later and December hands over 62.8°F afternoons, 3.54 inches and 7.0 wet days, with the sea down to 63.4°F. If your dates land after December 20 there is a holiday period on top, and we could not verify its rates, so we quote none.

Is November a good time to visit Albufeira?

For a walking, driving and eating trip, yes. A 67.3°F month with 6.6 wet days gives the coast to whoever is outside in it, and the Old Town is crossable at dinner time without a wait. For a beach-and-pool vacation with children, no, or not without heated water on site: 65.3°F sea and 53.4°F nights are not the week most American families pictured when they booked the Algarve.

If swimming is the point of the trip, move it to October: 73.9°F days, 67.3°F water, 2.20 inches of rain, the same coast four weeks earlier. Our October page carries that month in full. If the flights only work in winter, December still functions for walking, and the country’s month-by-month verdict sets both against the rest of the year.

No other month puts these three together: an Atlantic still reading 65.3°F, air at 67.3°F, and a 10 hour 14 minute day that ends at 5:23 p.m., early enough that a walk and a long dinner both fit.

The last word

Book November if the week is built on shoes, a car and a table, and move it to October if it is built on the water. Carry one number with you: of the 6.6 days that record rain, only 2.7 reach 0.39 inch, so nearly four of them are the kind of damp a jacket handles and a plan can ignore. Then check the actual forecast from the hotel, because these are 30-year normals and no single November has ever matched one.

Sources & data for this guide

• November normals: high 67.3°F, low 53.4°F, 2.97 in, 6.6 days at 0.04 in or more, 2.7 days at 0.39 in or more · IPMA, climatological normals 1991–2020, station 554 Faro, altitude 5.0 m · checked Sep 23, 2026
• October and December normals used in the comparison table · IPMA, same series and same station · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Sea surface 65.3°F (October 67.3°F, December 63.4°F), mean of daily maxima 2015–2024 · Open-Meteo Marine API · checked Sep 23, 2026 · a model output, not a buoy reading in the bay
• Daylight 10h 14m, sunrise 7:09 a.m. and sunset 5:23 p.m. on November 15 · sunrise-sunset.org, converted to local time · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Scope caveat: IPMA measures at Faro, at the eastern end of the Algarve, while Albufeira is central. Inland and high ground run colder and wetter than these coastal figures.
• We found no occupancy or monthly room-rate series for Albufeira, and we could not verify the municipal tourist tax, off-season boat schedules and prices, lifeguard coverage, pool heating or beach parking charges. Where those subjects come up above, they appear as questions to ask, not as figures.

To plan your stay

• Best Time to Visit Albufeira: Weather, Sea Temperature and the Quiet Months
• Albufeira in October: Weather, Sea Temperature and How Busy It Gets
• Albufeira in December: Weather, Sea Temperature, Daylight and Crowds
• Albufeira in January: Weather, Rain Days, Sea Temperature and Crowds

Nearby places

• Carvoeiro, Portugal: the Cove, Algar Seco and the Seven Hanging Valleys Trailhead
• Faro, Portugal: The Old Town, the Lagoon Boats and the Airport Night
• Tavira, Portugal: the Island Ferry, the Old Town and Where to Stay