PORTO · NOVEMBER · 41.2° N
November hands Porto 6.53 inches of rain across 13 wet days, afternoons that top out near 62°F, and a sun already gone by 5:16 p.m. on the 15th. The city does not close for any of it. It changes its hours, and that is the part worth planning around.
The Palácio da Bolsa switches to its winter timetable this month: 09:00 to 13:00, then 14:00 to 17:30, so its afternoon runs three and a half hours instead of nine. Serralves has retired the 17:00 late-entry ticket until next summer. The Clérigos Tower still closes at 19:00, and 19:00 now falls almost two hours after dark.
THE MONTH AT A GLANCE · PORTO · NOVEMBER
November is the wettest of the three months around it and the one that pushes Porto indoors: 62.2°F days, 6.53 inches of rain, dark at 5:16 p.m., and a Palácio da Bolsa closed for lunch until March.
AVERAGE HIGH 62.2°F · 13.0 RAIN DAYS · SEA 62.4°F · DARK AT 5:16 P.M.
Go for: Lello, Clérigos and Serralves at full opening, a tower still open two hours past sunset, and city fares that never move with the season.
Think twice before: planning beach days or long evening light: the sea averages 62.4°F on its daily maxima, and the sun is down at 5:16 p.m.
Normals: IPMA station 545, 1991–2020 · Sea: Open-Meteo Marine 2015–2024 · Fares: Metro do Porto · full sources at the end
On this page
- Porto weather in November62.2°F highs, 6.53 inches of rain
- Sea temperature and swimming62.4°F, on daily maxima
- Crowds, hotel prices and the city tax€3 per person, per night
- Things to do in Porto in NovemberLello €15.95, Bolsa €14, Serralves €24
- Two days in Porto, hour by hourA plan built on a 5:16 p.m. sunset
- November vs October and DecemberHighs, rain days and sea, side by side
- Is November a good month to visit Porto?The verdict, and the month to shift to
Two things move in November, and both are hours rather than weather: the Bolsa drops to a split winter timetable, and Serralves’ late-afternoon ticket ended on September 30. Neighborhoods, port cellars and day trips belong to Porto and the North, and the city-versus-city question is settled in Lisbon vs Porto.
Porto weather in November: average highs, lows and rain days
| Measure | November (1991–2020) | On the ground |
|---|---|---|
| Average high | 62.2°F (16.8°C) | Fleece over a shirt at midday |
| Average low | 48.9°F (9.4°C) | A real jacket after dark |
| Precipitation | 6.53 in (166 mm) | Wettest of the three fall months |
| Days ≥ 0.04 in | 13.0 | Measurable rain about 4 days in 10 |
| Days ≥ 0.39 in | 5.9 | A soaking on roughly 1 day in 5 |
| Sea surface | 62.4°F (16.9°C) | Mean of daily maxima, 2015–2024 |
| Daylight, Nov 15 | 9h 55m | 7:21 a.m. to 5:16 p.m. |
Porto’s November normals come from IPMA, Portugal’s national weather service, and specifically from station 545 at Porto/Pedras Rubras, an instrument sitting 67.7 meters above sea level. Its 1991–2020 record gives the month an average high of 62.2°F (16.8°C), an average low of 48.9°F (9.4°C) and 6.53 inches of precipitation. The distinction is worth a sentence: a station reading is a thermometer in a field, not a model grid cell interpolated across a river valley.
Thirteen days of an average November record at least 1 mm of rain (0.04 inch), and 5.9 of those record 10 mm or more (0.39 inch). Both are IPMA’s own thresholds, not the 0.10-inch cutoff that American tables use, so the two counts never swap cleanly. Translated into walking days, expect something falling on about four days in ten, and a genuine soaking on roughly one day in five.
Between 62.2°F at midday and 48.9°F before dawn sits a 13.3°F spread, modest by continental standards and wide enough to make a single jacket wrong twice a day. A shell that handles sideways rain earns its space faster than insulation does. Grip earns it faster still, because Porto’s sidewalks are polished granite and 6.53 inches of water finds every slope. Our packing guide covers the rest, and the safety page takes wet stone seriously.
On November 15 the sun rises at 7:21 a.m. and sets at 5:16 p.m. local time: 9 hours 55 minutes, with the usable light gone before the last of it. Anything with a view wants the morning half. Anything with a roof is better held back for the hours when the river has gone black and Vila Nova de Gaia is a line of lights on the far bank.
Can you swim in Porto in November? Sea temperature and what it feels like
Sea surface off Porto averages 62.4°F (16.9°C) in November. That figure is a reanalysis value from the Open-Meteo Marine dataset, averaged over 2015 to 2024, and it is the mean of daily maxima rather than a 24-hour mean. Read it as the warm end of the day’s water, a shade above what a full-day average would put on the page.
Set it beside the air and the problem shows: 62.4°F of water under a 62.2°F afternoon, with 48.9°F arriving after sunset. Nothing warm is waiting for you on the sand. A wetsuit turns this into a normal season on the Atlantic. Without one, 62°F is a short, loud dip rather than a swim, and the towel does not fix the ten minutes after it.
On wind and swell our file is empty: no wave-height or wind series for the Porto coast, so no numbers appear here. What the file does carry is the rain, and the Atlantic fronts that deliver 6.53 inches in a month lift the surf as they pass. The extreme version of that season sits down the coast at Nazaré.
How busy is Porto in November? Crowds, hotel prices and the €3 city tax
Our Porto file carries no month-by-month hotel rate series, so this month gets no percentage from us. What can be priced is everything that ignores the season. A Z2 title, the one covering central Porto, costs €1.40 and lasts an hour. The reusable Andante Azul card is €0.60, bought once. Ten titles plus one free come to €14.00. Country-wide budget bands sit in the trip cost guide.
What binds in November is opening hours rather than lead time. The Palácio da Bolsa runs a mandatory 30-minute guided tour and assigns the language in order of arrival among Portuguese, Spanish, French and English, and from November to March its afternoon window is only 14:00 to 17:30. Turning up at 09:00 buys more than any advance click. One transit rule to know: the Andante card holds a single kind of title at a time, so a Z2 title and a Z3 title cannot ride together on it.
Porto charges a Taxa Municipal Turística of €3 per person for every overnight stay, capped at seven consecutive nights. It is levied per person rather than per room, so two adults on a five-night November trip owe €30, collected by the property. Children of 12 and under are exempt. So are stays for medical treatment and visitors with a disability of 60 percent or more, and each of those two exemptions extends to two companions on proof.
The single line item where paying more changes this month is the address. Thirteen rain days make a bed inside the Clérigos and Baixa walking core worth real money, because every retreat indoors becomes a five-minute walk. Sleep out at Z3 and each retreat costs an €1.80 title, twice a day, in exactly the weather you were escaping. Where to stay in Portugal sets the wider frame.
Things to do in Porto in November: Lello, Clérigos, Serralves and the Bolsa
By mid-November the whole city is lit two hours before its main viewpoint closes. The Clérigos Tower keeps 09:00 to 19:00 every day, and its 23:00 closings belong to Easter, summer and Christmas. With sunset at 5:16 p.m., a night climb costs nothing extra this month. Livraria Lello, for its part, opens on all 30 days: its five annual closures fall on January 1, Easter Sunday, May 1, June 24 for São João, and December 25.
Prices and hours: Livraria Lello asks €15.95 to walk in and opens 09:00 to 19:30 daily, and the ticket works as a voucher deducted from any book bought from Lello’s own editions, required even if buying books is the only plan. Palácio da Bolsa is €14, or €9.50 for students, schools and seniors, on 09:00 to 13:00 then 14:00 to 17:30 from November to March. Serralves is €24 for the general ticket or €15 for the park alone.
Free in November is a short list, and Serralves’ first Sunday is not on it. That free entry, like the €20 and €12 resident rates, needs a Portuguese Citizen Card or Resident Card, is sold at the box office only, and a visitor from abroad still pays €24 the same morning. Children under 12 do enter free, along with Amigos de Serralves members and visitors with reduced mobility, and a Porto Card or Youth Card cuts 50 percent. Costing nothing at any date: the Douro quays and the upper deck of the Dom Luís I bridge on foot.
Porto in November: a two-day itinerary
Day one runs on the Bolsa’s clock. Be at the Palácio da Bolsa for the 09:00 opening, while the language of the 30-minute tour is still being handed out in order of arrival (€14, €9.50 reduced). Livraria Lello opens at the same hour and holds until 19:30, so slide it to 10:15 (€15.95, refunded against a Lello edition). Climb Clérigos before lunch, keep the afternoon for the quays, and come back to the tower between 17:30 and 19:00 with the city already lit.
Day two goes west to Serralves, where €24 covers museum and park together and €15 covers the park alone. Should the sky open, and 5.9 November days deliver 0.39 inch or more, the same ticket moves you into the Álvaro Siza Wing and the House of Cinema without paying twice. Rain that settles in for the day pushes you back to the center, where the 14:00 to 17:30 window is the only palace afternoon on offer between November and March.
Porto in November vs October and December: highs, rain days and sea temperature
| Measure | October | November | December |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 69.3°F | 62.2°F | 58.5°F |
| Average low | 55.2°F | 48.9°F | 45.7°F |
| Precipitation | 5.86 in | 6.53 in | 6.04 in |
| Rain days | 11.1 (≥ 0.10 in) | 13.0 (≥ 0.04 in) | 12.4 (≥ 0.10 in) |
| Sea surface | 66.4°F | 62.4°F | 59.2°F |
November sits 7.1°F under October on the average high, 62.2°F against 69.3°F, and 3.7°F above December’s 58.5°F. It is the wettest of the three at 6.53 inches, ahead of December’s 6.04 and October’s 5.86. The water gives up 4.0°F between October and November, then another 3.2°F by December: 66.4°F, 62.4°F, 59.2°F. The rain-day row is a single series: IPMA counts all three months at the same 1 mm threshold.
Shift back four weeks and you buy 7.1°F of daytime warmth, a 66.4°F sea, two fewer wet days on the stricter count, and the Bolsa on its April-to-October hours of 09:00 to 18:30 without a lunch break. Shift forward and you give up light and warmth while keeping the rain, with Lello shut on December 25. Both neighbors have their own pages: Porto in October and Porto in December.
Is November a good time to visit Porto?
Yes, if your Porto is an indoor city with walking between the rooms. 62.2°F is jacket weather rather than misery, and 13 wet days out of 30 leave more dry half-days than the total suggests. No, if the trip needs the sea, a beach afternoon or daylight after work hours: a 62.4°F ocean and a 5:16 p.m. sunset answer those before you pack.
When the answer lands on no, October is the shift to make rather than December. It holds 69.3°F days, a 66.4°F sea, less rain at 5.86 inches, and a palace open 09:00 to 18:30 straight through. Timing across the whole country is argued out in the best time to visit Portugal.
What this month alone hands you: a tower open until 19:00 above a city that has been floodlit since 5:16 p.m., on the ordinary daytime timetable and at the ordinary daytime price.
The last word
Book the bed inside the walking core, put the Bolsa at 09:00 on the first morning, and let a 5:16 p.m. sunset write the rest of the schedule instead of fighting it. One number still in reserve: the Andante scale tops out at €4.10 for Z8, and that title runs two hours, which is cheap shelter when a squall parks over the Douro.
Sources & data for this guide
- November normals (62.2°F high, 48.9°F low, 6.53 in) · IPMA, 1991–2020 climate normals, station 545 Porto/Pedras Rubras, 67.7 m · checked Sep 9, 2026
- Rain-day counts (13.0 days ≥ 1 mm, 5.9 days ≥ 10 mm) · IPMA thresholds, not the 0.10-inch cutoff used by US tables · checked Sep 9, 2026
- October and December normals and rain days (0.10-inch threshold) · same IPMA station and period · checked Sep 9, 2026
- Sea surface 62.4°F, and 66.4°F / 59.2°F for the neighbors · Open-Meteo Marine API, 2015–2024 mean of daily maxima · checked Sep 9, 2026
- Daylight 9h 55m, sunrise 07:21 and sunset 17:16 on Nov 15, converted to Europe/Lisbon · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 9, 2026
- Andante card €0.60, Z2 €1.40, ten plus one €14.00, zone scale to Z8 €4.10, Tour 1 €7.50 and Tour 3 €16.00 · Metro do Porto official Fares page · checked Sep 9, 2026
- Airport fare zone: not given here. The Fares page lists the zone scale without naming the airport’s zone, so check it at the departure station · verification attempted Sep 8, 2026
- Livraria Lello €15.95, voucher rule, 09:00–19:30 and the five annual closures · Livraria Lello official site and ticketing · checked Sep 9, 2026
- Clérigos Tower 09:00–19:00 daily, extended closings at Easter, in summer and at Christmas · torredosclerigos.pt · checked Sep 9, 2026
- Serralves €24 general, €15 park, resident rates, first-Sunday conditions, under-12 and 50 percent reductions, Aug 3–Sep 30 late ticket · Fundação de Serralves, Visitar Serralves · checked Sep 9, 2026
- Palácio da Bolsa €14 and €9.50, mandatory 30-minute tour with language by arrival order, Nov–Mar hours 09:00–13:00 and 14:00–17:30 · official site, Tourism section · checked Sep 9, 2026
- Taxa Municipal Turística €3 per person per night, seven-night cap, exemptions · Câmara Municipal do Porto, official TMT leaflet · checked Sep 9, 2026
- No month-by-month hotel rate series and no wind or wave series for Porto are held in our data, which is why no such figures appear above. Itinerary choices and the free-walk suggestions are editorial; hours and prices change, so confirm with each operator when you book.