Tuscany in November: the wettest month of the year, counted day by day, and the dates that decide when you go
Updated 21 October 2026 · Ten Novembers of daily records from the ERA5 reanalysis · Tour terms read on Viator for 10 to 20 November 2026
Two things are true about November in Tuscany and they pull in opposite directions. It is the wettest month of the year, measurably, and it is also the month when the new oil is pressed, the white truffle is at its peak and the queues have gone. The question is not whether November is good. It is how much rain you are actually buying, and what happens to the money if it falls on the day you booked something.
Both answers are below as day counts rather than monthly averages, because a monthly average is the one number that cannot tell you either. Thirty days of light drizzle and eight days of downpour produce the same figure and completely different holidays.
What the wettest month actually costs you
November is the rainiest month in Florence and the record is not ambiguous about it. What the headline hides is the shape of that rain. A month can get its water from thirty damp days or from eight soakings, and those are completely different holidays.
Set November against the months either side of it and the gap narrows sharply as soon as you stop counting millimetres and start counting days.
| Month | Rain per month | Dry days | Dry days in a five-day trip |
|---|---|---|---|
| September | 114 mm | 68 % | 3.4 |
| October | 107 mm | 63 % | 3.2 |
| November | 140 mm | 56 % | 2.8 |
| December | 101 mm | 61 % | 3.1 |
| January | 79 mm | 64 % | 3.2 |
November holds 31 per cent more water than October and gives up seven percentage points of dry days to do it. Over a five-day trip that is the difference between 3.2 dry days and 2.8. Half a day. It is a real cost and it is worth knowing, and it is also a long way from what “the wettest month of the year” sounds like when you read it in October with the flights not yet booked.
The month that genuinely beats November on dry days is September, at 68 per cent. It also has none of the truffle, none of the new oil and considerably more people in front of you.
Where the 140 millimetres falls
Sorting all 300 days by how much rain each one got explains where the extra water in November comes from, and it is not from more drizzle.
| A November day | Rain that day | Share of days |
|---|---|---|
| Dry | under 1 mm | 56 % |
| Spitting | 1 to 5 mm | 15 % |
| Properly raining | 5 to 15 mm | 19 % |
| Heavy | over 15 mm | 10 % |
The difference between November and October is almost entirely in the bottom two rows. Twenty-nine per cent of November days get 5 mm or more, and a tenth of the month gets more than 15 mm in a single day. That is the kind of rain that ends an afternoon rather than the kind you walk through.
Which makes the booking question concrete rather than theoretical. On roughly one day in ten, something outdoors is not going to happen.
Which tours give your money back if it rains
This is published before you book and almost nobody reads it. Every Viator product declares two things separately: whether it can be called off for bad weather, and whether it can be called off for not enough bookings. In the wettest month of the year, in low season, both matter and they are not the same risk.
| Product | Where it happens | Called off if the weather is bad | Called off if too few book |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olive mill tour, Montalcino | indoors, at the mill | No, it runs in the rain | No |
| Truffle hunt, San Gimignano | woods | Yes, refunded or moved | No |
| Chianti half day | coach and two cellars | Yes, refunded or moved | Yes |
| Vespa tour, Florence hills | you ride it yourself | Yes, refunded or moved | Yes |
Read the two right-hand columns together and they say something useful. A yes in the weather column protects your money and risks your day. The operator calls it off, you are refunded or moved, and you have lost an afternoon of a short trip rather than a hundred euros. A no means the opposite: it will run whatever the sky is doing, which is exactly what you want from something that happens under a roof and exactly what you do not want from something that does not.
The second column is the one that belongs to November specifically. Two of the four can be cancelled for insufficient bookings, and that is a low-season problem rather than a weather one. In August a coach fills itself. In the third week of November it may not.
Of these four, the olive mill is the only one exposed to neither, and November is the month it is worth doing anyway.
Frantoio di Montalcino: Olive Oil Mill Tour and Tasting
Ninety minutes inside a working mill at the one time of year when it is actually pressing. A walk through the production area and then a guided tasting of several oils with bread. It is indoors, so it is the one product here that does not get called off for weather, and it is not subject to a minimum group either. Guides in English, Italian and Spanish, maximum fifteen people, and it is at the mill itself near Montalcino rather than a pickup from Florence, so you need your own transport.
Truffle Hunting in San Gimignano
Two hours in the woods with a hunter and his dogs, and you go home with fresh truffle including whatever is dug up while you are there. November is the middle of the white truffle season. Two things to weigh: it is outdoors, so it can be called off for weather, which protects your money but costs you the slot; and 18 reviews is a thin base, so the 4.9 is less settled than a number with hundreds behind it. Meeting point is in San Gimignano, not Florence.
The wine side of the same question is covered in more depth in the Chianti cellars that take walk-ins and what each one charges, and all five bookable truffle hunts are priced against each other in the truffle hunting guide, which also has the regional law on when the season legally opens.
One we would not book for November. The Vespa tour of the Florentine hills is a genuinely good product, 4.8 across more than four thousand reviews, and it is on sale with availability right through the middle of the month. It is also four to six hours riding a scooter you are driving yourself, in the month that averages 140 mm. It can be called off for weather and for low numbers, so the downside is a lost day rather than lost money, but the odds of that are at their worst in November. Keep it for a dry month.
One November is not another
Everything above is an average, and the averages conceal a spread wide enough to make them close to useless for a specific trip.
| November | Day / night °C | Dry days | Rain in the month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 14.4 / 7.4 | 15 of 30 | 174 mm |
| 2017 | 14.3 / 5.6 | 16 of 30 | 156 mm |
| 2018 | 15.8 / 8.0 | 19 of 30 | 84 mm |
| 2019 | 15.7 / 9.0 | 8 of 30 | 280 mm |
| 2020 | 15.8 / 7.3 | 25 of 30 | 44 mm |
| 2021 | 15.4 / 8.0 | 14 of 30 | 121 mm |
| 2022 | 16.3 / 7.5 | 18 of 30 | 160 mm |
| 2023 | 15.8 / 7.3 | 12 of 30 | 178 mm |
| 2024 | 15.8 / 5.4 | 23 of 30 | 62 mm |
| 2025 | 15.0 / 6.1 | 18 of 30 | 145 mm |
The driest November in the series had six times less rain than the wettest, and three times as many dry days. Forty-four millimetres in 2020 against 280 in 2019. Twenty-five dry days against eight.
Notice what barely moves while that happens: the temperature column. Every one of the ten Novembers has a mean daytime high between 14.3 and 16.3 °C. The temperature of a Tuscan November is predictable and the rain is not. That is a useful split, because it means you can pack with confidence and should book outdoor things with none.
The first half and the second half are different months
Splitting the thirty days down the middle separates two things that get averaged into one number everywhere else.
| Half of the month | Day °C | Night °C | Dry days | Rain per day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 15 November | 17.1 | 8.6 | 59 % | 4.6 mm |
| 16 to 30 November | 13.8 | 5.7 | 53 % | 4.7 mm |
The temperature falls by 3.3 degrees across the month and the rain does not change at all. Daily rainfall is 4.6 mm in the first half and 4.7 in the second, which is the same number. So early November is not drier in any meaningful sense, it is just warmer by about the gap between a jumper and a coat.
If the dates are yours to choose, the first half gives you an extra three degrees and six more percentage points of dry days. The second half gives you all three truffle market weekends.
What to pack
The temperature record argues against the thing people instinctively do, which is treat November in Italy as winter.
| Across 300 November days | How often |
|---|---|
| Reached 16 °C or more | 45 % |
| Did not reach 10 °C | 3 % |
| Night at or below freezing | 4.7 % |
| Warmest day in the series | 22.3 °C |
| Coldest night in the series | −3.0 °C |
Nearly half of November gets to 16 degrees and almost none of it stays below ten. That is not coat weather in the daytime. It is layers weather, and the layer that actually earns its place in the bag is a waterproof one rather than a thick one. The evenings are a different matter, with a mean night of 7.1 degrees and the second half of the month colder than the first.
Shoes matter more than they would in October. A tenth of the month gets more than 15 mm in a day, and hill-town streets are stone, steep and polished by several centuries of feet.
For the month after this one, the same count for December is in the December weather page, where one night in five freezes and it is dark by 16:42.
The fixed dates of November 2026
Three things in the month have dates that are already set and that are worth building a trip around or avoiding, depending on what you came for.
| Date | What | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday 1 November | Ognissanti, a national public holiday | Everywhere |
| 14 and 15 November | 55th Mostra Mercato del Tartufo Bianco, first weekend | San Miniato, historic centre |
| 21 and 22 November | Truffle market, second weekend | San Miniato, historic centre |
| 28 and 29 November | Truffle market, third and last weekend | San Miniato, historic centre |
| Sunday 29 November | 42nd Estra Firenze Marathon, sold out | Florence, from Piazza del Duomo |
A note on the truffle market, because the name gets used for two different events. The one above is the national one, in the historic centre of San Miniato itself. There is a separate, smaller fair in a hamlet of the same comune earlier in the autumn, and both are referred to in conversation as the San Miniato truffle fair. The truffle hunting page has both, along with what the hunts cost and the regional law that fixes the season species by species.
Sunday 29 November, when two things collide
The 42nd Estra Firenze Marathon runs on Sunday 29 November 2026. It starts in Piazza del Duomo and covers 42.195 km through the city and along the Arno. It is already sold out, with a waiting list open, and entries had climbed from 69 euros in January to 109 for the final window.
That is the same Sunday as the closing day of the truffle market, forty kilometres west. Both are worth doing and on 29 November they are not compatible with each other if a car through central Florence is part of the plan. The organiser publishes a street list for the route, which is the document to check if you are driving, staying inside the ring, or have a train to catch that morning.
If the marathon is not something you are running, the practical read is simpler: the centre of Florence on that Sunday morning belongs to the race, which makes it a good day to be in San Miniato and a poor one to be moving luggage across town.
Four things worth carrying into the planning, in descending order of how much trouble they save you.
- This is climate, not a forecast. Ten years tells you what to put in the bag two months out. It tells you nothing at all about your actual dates, and given the spread in the table above, nothing ever will. Check a forecast in the week before you fly.
- Ring rural places ahead. Country restaurants and some agriturismi do cut their hours in November. Which ones, and by how much, changes year to year, so a phone call the week before beats any list.
- For the marathon route, use the organiser's street list. It is published, it is the only version that counts, and a closure time taken second hand is worse than no closure time at all.
- Wind and humidity are not in the temperature figures. They are the reason a damp 8 °C by the river feels worse than a dry 5 °C inland, so treat the table as temperature and nothing more.
Questions
Is November really the wettest month in Tuscany?
Yes, and it is not close. Across ten Novembers of daily records for Florence, 2016 to 2025, November averages 140 mm of rain. September averages 114, October 107, December 101 and January 79. What that figure hides is that the rain arrives in fewer, heavier days rather than in constant drizzle: 56 per cent of November days are dry, against 63 per cent in October. So November carries 31 per cent more water than October but only 7 percentage points fewer dry days.
How many dry days will I get on a five-day trip in November?
About 2.8, against 3.2 in October. That is the honest answer and the gap is roughly half a day. But the average is a weak guide here, because the spread between years is enormous: November 2020 had 25 dry days out of 30 and 44 mm of rain in the whole month, while November 2019 had 8 dry days and 280 mm. Planning for the average will mislead you in both directions.
Do I need a winter coat for Tuscany in November?
Usually not for the daytime. Across those same 300 days, 45 per cent reached 16 °C or more and only 3 per cent failed to reach 10 °C. Nights at or below freezing were 4.7 per cent of the record. The mean daytime high is 15.4 °C and the mean night 7.1 °C. What that argues for is layers and something genuinely waterproof rather than something thick. The month is wet far more than it is cold.
Is early November different from late November?
Yes, by about three and a half degrees. The 1st to the 15th averages 17.1 °C by day and 8.6 °C at night, and 59 per cent of those days are dry. The 16th to the 30th averages 13.8 °C by day and 5.7 °C at night, with 53 per cent dry. Rainfall per day is almost identical across the two halves, at 4.6 and 4.7 mm, so the difference you will feel is temperature rather than rain.
When is the San Miniato truffle market in 2026?
The 55th Mostra Mercato del Tartufo Bianco delle Colline Sanminiatesi runs on the last three weekends of November 2026: the 14th and 15th, the 21st and 22nd, and the 28th and 29th. The organising foundation publishes those dates on the event listing rather than on the event page itself. There is a second, separate truffle fair at Corazzano earlier in the autumn, and in conversation both get called the San Miniato truffle fair.
Will a tour be cancelled if it rains, and do I get my money back?
It depends on the product, and the difference is published before you book. Of four we checked for mid-November dates, three may be called off for bad weather, in which case you are refunded or moved. The fourth, an olive mill tour that happens indoors, will not be: it runs in the rain. Two of the four can also be cancelled for insufficient bookings, which is a real risk in low season and a separate one from the weather.
Is anything closed in Tuscany in November?
Seasonal businesses in the countryside do reduce their hours, and that is worth planning around, but we have not audited which ones, so we are not going to publish a list we cannot stand behind. What we can say is specific: every tour we priced for 10 to 20 November 2026 was bookable, including the open-air ones, and the olive mills are at their busiest because this is when the new oil is pressed.
What happens in Florence on 29 November 2026?
The 42nd Estra Firenze Marathon, which starts in Piazza del Duomo and runs 42.195 km through the city and along the Arno. It is already sold out with a waiting list open. The organiser publishes a street list for the route. The same Sunday is the last day of the San Miniato truffle market, 40 km away, so if both are on your plan they fall on the same date and only one of them is reachable by car through the centre that morning.
Next: what the five bookable truffle hunts cost and when the season legally opens or the Chianti cellars, with what each charges to taste.