Funchal in November: Weather, Sea Temperature, Crowds and Prices

FUNCHAL · NOVEMBER · MADEIRA

Funchal spends November at 73.0°F by day and 62.6°F after dark, and that pair of numbers is the whole commercial case for the month. It is a fall vacation on an Atlantic island where nobody packs a coat, reached from the US on a connection through Lisbon. The capital of Madeira fills a trip with gardens, a cable car, a wine lodge and two covered markets, and none of them mind a 73-degree afternoon.

October’s 77.4°F afternoons and its 75.6°F sea are gone, though not by much. Rainfall eases, 3.16 inches against October’s 3.59, spread over 7.3 days rather than 7.0. What really shortens is the day: 10 hours 31 minutes on November 15, with sunset at 6:07 p.m. One famous ride also goes at the mercy of the sky, since the Monte wicker sledges do not run on wet ground. For what isn’t dated by the month, where to sleep and how to cross the island, see our Madeira guide.

On this page

• Funchal weather in NovemberHighs of 73.0°F and 7.3 wet days
• Can you swim in Funchal in November?A sea at 73.0°F
• How busy Funchal gets in NovemberCruise counts, booking and the €2 tax
• Things to do in Funchal in NovemberMonte, Blandy’s and the two markets
• A two-day plan for FunchalTwo days built on 10 h 31 min of light
• November vs October and DecemberHow the three months compare
• Is November a good time to visit Funchal?Our verdict, for and against

Every figure here comes from Funchal’s own weather station, 58.0 meters above the sea inside the city. Madeira’s high ground is colder and far wetter, and the far end of a coast keeps its own weather, so a mountain levada day needs its own forecast rather than the normals below. Fares and opening hours are the operators’ published ones, read in September 2026.

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

The normals above are IPMA’s, the Portuguese national weather service, covering 1991 to 2020 at station 522 in Funchal. That is a real thermometer 58.0 meters up in the city, not a reanalysis grid cell averaged over water and mountain together. Its November reads 73.0°F for the average high and 62.6°F for the average low, with 3.16 inches of rain over the month.

Measurable rain, at least 0.04 inch, falls on 7.3 days of an average November, so roughly one day in four. The heavier sort, 0.39 inch or more, turns up 2.3 times in the month. Those are IPMA’s own 1 mm and 10 mm thresholds, not the 0.10-inch cutoff American tables use, and the two counts do not swap. On the averages, a seven-night stay keeps five dry days and loses a little under two.

Day and night sit 10.4°F apart, a narrow spread that decides the suitcase more than the afternoon figure does. A 73.0°F afternoon wants short sleeves, a 62.6°F evening on a terrace wants one light layer and nothing heavier. Rain gear earns its place ahead of warmth: a packable shell beats a sweater when the calendar carries 7.3 wet days. Our Portugal packing list handles the rest.

On November 15 the sun rises at 7:36 a.m. and sets at 6:07 p.m. local time, for 10 hours 31 minutes of daylight. The last useful light on a garden or a viewpoint arrives around half past five, and an outdoor plan that starts at 10 a.m. has already given away a third of its day. Take the cable car in the morning and keep the lit hours for whatever has to happen outdoors.

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

Sea surface off Funchal averages 73.0°F in November in the Open-Meteo marine record for 2015 to 2024. One caveat travels with that number: it is the mean of daily maxima, the warmest reading of each day, so it sits a shade above what a round-the-clock average would give. Air and water happen to read the same 73.0°F this month.

Water at 73 degrees swims without a wetsuit for most adults, brisk for the first minute and comfortable after that, though an hour in it is a long hour. It runs 2.6°F below October’s 75.6°F and 2.7°F above December’s 70.3°F. Children cool down faster than adults do, and a 62.6°F evening makes a wet swimsuit feel far worse than the swim itself did.

We could not source a wave-height or wind series for Funchal in November, so we give no swell figure at all. Check the marine forecast on the morning you mean to get in, and treat the temperature for what it is, a ten-year average rather than a promise about the day your flight lands.

How busy is Funchal in November? Cruise ships, booking and the tourist tax

Funchal’s demand peak is winter, and the port authority’s counts say so bluntly. APRAM publishes January to August: 113,210 cruise passengers in January, 113,839 in February, 108,699 in March and 88,918 in April, against 19,434 in May and 4,071 in July. Ship calls track the same curve, 41 to 44 a month from January through April and three in July. November is not in those published counts, so we attach no passenger figure to it, only its place on the calendar, ahead of the wave.

No occupancy or room-rate series was available to us for Madeira, so we crown no month cheap or expensive and we give no number of weeks to book ahead. Ticketing does have published rules. Blandy’s Wine Lodge asks visitors to book its tours in advance and cancels free up to 24 hours before. The cable car sells an e-ticket valid for 60 days after purchase, so it can be bought from home. The Monte sledges take no bookings whatsoever, same day and on site only.

Funchal charges a Taxa Municipal Turística of €2 per person per night, capped at seven consecutive nights, so €14 per guest at most. It applies to every paid overnight stay in the municipality whatever the booking channel, and an interrupted stay starts the count again. Children of 12 and under are exempt on production of an ID, as are visitors with a disability of 60 percent or more and residents of Madeira. Two adults with two young children on a week’s vacation therefore owe €28, not €56.

With 7.3 wet days on the calendar, the money worth spending in November buys flexibility rather than an upgrade. Blandy’s Premium Tour on Avenida Arriaga costs €23 for 45 minutes and a tasting of three Madeira wines, with English departures Monday to Friday at 10:30, 14:00, 15:00 and 16:00. It is a bookable indoor hour you can move for free up to a day out. A €16 one-way cable car ticket instead of the €22 round trip leaves the descent open in the same spirit.

Things to do in Funchal in November: Monte, Blandy’s and the Mercado dos Lavradores

November is the last fall month in Funchal where a morning swim and an afternoon climb to Monte are both comfortable: 73.0°F in the water, 73.0°F in the air. October beats it on both counts, and December takes 3.2°F off the air and 2.7°F off the sea. The gardens are what gains, because uphill walking at 73 degrees costs the legs far less than the same climb in August.

The cable car from the seafront to Monte runs 08:45 to 17:45, every day of the year except Christmas Day, at €22 round trip and €16 one way, free for children up to 6 and half price from 7 to 14. At the top station on Caminho das Babosas, the Monte Palace Tropical Garden covers 70,000 square meters of exotic planting, tile panels and a sculpture museum, at €18 for adults and free for children up to 14 with an adult. In Bom Sucesso, the Botanical Garden Eng. Rui Vieira holds more than 2,000 exotic species on Caminho do Meio.

Two of those timetables move with the season. From October to March the Monte Palace shuts at 18:00 instead of 19:00, and its museum stops admitting at 17:00 all year, just over an hour before a 6:07 p.m. sunset. The wicker sledges, €30 for one rider, €40 for two and €60 for three, work Monday to Saturday from 09:00 to 18:00, and no three-person run goes in rain or on wet ground. Buy that ticket on the morning itself, and only when the ground is dry.

The best free hour of the week costs nothing in any month, and November hands you more of the indoor kind. The Mercado dos Lavradores opens 07:00 to 19:00 Monday to Friday and 07:00 to 14:00 on Saturday, closed Sundays and public holidays, and that Saturday close catches people out. On a Sunday the Mercado da Penteada answers instead, 07:00 to 13:00, and it runs to 20:00 Monday to Thursday and 21:00 on Friday. Children up to 14 walk into the Monte Palace free with an adult, and children up to 6 ride the cable car for nothing.

Funchal in November: a two-day itinerary

Day one follows the light. Be at the Mercado dos Lavradores by 8, an hour after it opens, then take the 08:45 cable car and be inside the Monte Palace garden before ten, while the museum is still admitting. If the ground is dry, buy the sledge ticket on the spot and ride down. Lunch late, then fill the flat part of the afternoon with Blandy’s 14:00 or 15:00 English departure on Avenida Arriaga, and count on the light going at 6:07 p.m.

Day two goes to the water and the Botanical Garden: swim in the morning, when the 73.0°F figure is at its daily best, then Caminho do Meio and its 2,000-plus species after lunch. If the sky turns, and on the averages it does on roughly two days out of seven, invert the order. The wine lodge also sells a shorter 30-minute tour, the Penteada market stays open to 20:00 Monday to Thursday, and the sledges simply wait for the next dry morning, since nothing about them can be booked in advance anyway.

Funchal in November vs October and December

The air falls steadily across the three months, 77.4°F to 73.0°F to 69.8°F, with the lows tracking down from 66.6°F to 59.9°F. Rain refuses to behave the same way. November is the driest of the trio at 3.16 inches, under October’s 3.59 and well under December’s 3.73, while the wet-day count barely stirs between October and November, 7.0 against 7.3, before jumping to 8.6 in December. All three air columns are IPMA station normals for 1991 to 2020. The sea line alone comes from the marine record for 2015 to 2024.

Moving the trip four weeks earlier buys 4.4°F of afternoon warmth and 2.6°F more sea, for 0.43 inch more rain. Moving it four weeks later costs 3.2°F of air and 2.7°F of water, adds 1.3 wet days, and sets you one month nearer the January and February cruise peak of 113,210 and 113,839 passengers. If the swim decides the vacation, go earlier and price it in our October guide. If the calm street matters more than the thermometer, stay put.

Is November a good time to visit Funchal?

Yes for most visitors, and the case is numeric: a 73.0°F afternoon, a sea at the same reading, and 3.16 inches of rain spread over 7.3 days, the lightest monthly total of the fall. Two groups should hesitate. Anyone counting on a beach week will find the water 2.6°F below October’s and the day only 10 hours 31 minutes long. Anyone whose plan hangs on the Monte sledges is betting on dry ground in a month that records 2.3 days of heavy rain.

If the water is the point, October is the month to book: 77.4°F days, 66.6°F nights, a 75.6°F sea and 7.0 wet days, at the cost of 0.43 inch more rain than November. December runs the wrong way on every line, wetter at 3.73 inches across 8.6 wet days and cooler in the sea at 70.3°F. Funchal in October runs the same figures for that month, and the national calendar sets Madeira against the mainland.

Of the three, November is the only month where the air and the sea read the same number, 73.0°F, and that pairing is what lets you swim at noon and climb to Monte at four on the same day.

The last word

Two days in Funchal in November run on 10 hours 31 minutes of light, so spend the lit hours outdoors and hold the €23 wine lodge and the covered market back as the rain plan. Buy the cable car e-ticket before you fly, since it stays valid 60 days, and note that the car itself runs 08:45 to 17:45 every day of the year except Christmas Day. A gray Tuesday costs you the €30 sledge ride and nothing else on the list.

Sources & data for this guide

• November normals, rain-day counts and the 1 mm / 10 mm thresholds · IPMA, 1991-2020 normals, station 522 Funchal, altitude 58.0 m · checked Sep 23, 2026
• October and December normals · IPMA, same station and same period · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Sea surface temperature, mean of daily maxima 2015-2024 · Open-Meteo Marine API · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Daylight, sunrise and sunset on November 15 · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Cable car fares, child rates and hours · Teleférico do Funchal, official site · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Monte sledge prices, the no-booking rule and the wet-ground restriction · Carreiros do Monte, official site · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Monte Palace Tropical Garden admission, area and the October-March timetable · official site · checked Sep 23, 2026. Several aggregators list €12.50; the garden’s own site says €18, and we follow the garden.
• Blandy’s Premium Tour price and English departure times · Blandy’s Wine Lodge, official site · checked Sep 23, 2026. Aggregators listing €18 disagree with the lodge itself.
• Taxa Municipal Turística, cap and exemptions · Câmara Municipal do Funchal, official FAQ · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Market hours, Lavradores and Penteada · Câmara Municipal do Funchal, Divisão de Mercados · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Cruise passengers and ship calls, January to August · APRAM, Porto do Funchal · checked Sep 23, 2026. The published documents are charts plotting 2025 and 2026 side by side, and we read the higher, more recent series. No November figure is published there, so we give none.
• We could not verify a wave-height or wind series for Funchal in November, and we found no occupancy or room-rate series for Madeira · check operators and forecasts when you book.

To plan your stay

• Best Time to Visit Funchal: Month-by-Month Weather, Sea Temperature and the Quiet Season
• Funchal in October: Weather, Sea Temperature, Crowds and Prices
• Funchal in December: Weather, Sea Temperature and the Cruise-Ship Season
• Funchal in January: Weather Normals, Sea Temperature and the Cruise-Ship Peak

Nearby places

• Lagos, Algarve: The Walled Town, the Beaches and Getting Around Without a Car
• Ponta da Piedade: Cliff Walkways, Grotto Boats and the Best Time of Day
• Sagres, Portugal: Wind, the Beaches on Both Sides and Cabo de São Vicente