Weather Explainers
By Chris Dolce and Jon Erdman
October 31, 2023
At a Glance
- November can feature Midwest "witch storms," first snows for some and severe weather.
- Hurricane season comes to a close.
- Florida's dry season begins as the wet season ramps up in the West.
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November can be a dynamic weather month since the hand off between fall and winter is fully underway, which means there is often a mix of weather conditions in any given year.
Here are a few of the things we watch for, beginning with a spooky-sounding nickname for a type of storm.
November can feature notorious 'Witch' storms in the Midwest: No, this isn't some reference to Halloween being carried over into the new month. It refers to the "Witches of November" which is a phrase sometimes used to describe intense Midwest windstorms that have had a notorious history in early November as well as late October.
Winds from these storms often cause tree damage and power outages. The storms are also a major hazard for shipping on the Great Lakes. One of the most well-known witch storms sank a huge iron-ore ship called the Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior in November 1975.
These storms develop in fall due to increasing temperature contrasts from north to south across the country helping to produce stronger low-pressure systems. The stronger they are, the more intense winds they can produce.
Many in the Midwest, Northeast and lower elevations of the West see their first accumulating snow: The average first measurable snow (defined as at least 0.1 inches) typically arrives in November for many cities in the Northeast, Midwest and lower elevations of the West.
A few of the cities that historically experience the first snow of the season in November include Boston (Nov. 29), Chicago (Nov. 18), Cleveland (Nov. 10), Pittsburgh (Nov. 17) and Salt Lake City (Nov. 8).
One other unique aspect about November is that lake-effect snow typically becomes more active in the Great Lakes.
(192-hours: Further beef up your forecast with our detailed, hour-by-hour breakdown for the next 8 days – only available on our Premium Pro experience.)
November kicks off a cloudier time of year: It's usually the cloudiest month of the year in parts of the Northern Plains and upper Midwest, including the Twin Cities and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, according to climatologist Brian Brettschneider. The cloudy peak arrives in December in other parts of the Midwest and Northeast, but November kicks off all the gloom.
An average November sky is at least 70% cloud-covered around the Great Lakes, interior Northeast and Pacific Northwest.
Severe weather outbreaks can occur in November as recent history shows: November 2022 was a reminder with an above average 68 tornadoes in the month, most of which were in the South. Deadly tornadoes struck Texas and Oklahoma on Nov. 4, and then Alabama early on Nov. 30.
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Larger outbreaks can occur in fall when warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico meets up with the increasingly stronger cold fronts and jet stream winds that typically sweep across the country. That's generally the same setup we often see in spring.
Most of the time these fall tornado outbreaks occur in the Deep South, where warm, moist air is more common, but they can sometimes spread farther north.
(MORE: Recent Years Show Tornadoes Are A Danger In Fall, Winter)
Hurricane season comes to its official end: November is the last month of the Atlantic hurricane season, but both the number of named storms and risk to the U.S. is much lower than earlier in the fall.
Last year was unusual with Hurricane Nicole making landfall in Florida on Nov. 10. It was the first U.S. hurricane landfall in November since Kate struck the Panhandle in 1985.
Central America has seen some devastating November storms in recent years. Two Category 4 hurricanes - Eta then Iota - struck Nicaragua within 15 miles of each other just 13 days apart in November 2020.
Dry season begins in Florida as wet season ramps up on West Coast: Floridians enjoy the arrival of the state's dry season by November. Florida typically dries out by late October and it stays dry through early spring as cold fronts return.
This does not mean Florida stays completely dry, but that the amount of precipitation is notably less than during the wet season.
(MORE: What El Niño Means For Florida)
November marks the intensification of the wet season along the West Coast.
For Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, November averages more precipitation than any other month during the year.
California's wet season also typically ramps up by November as the jet stream gradually shifts southward.
Chris Dolce has been a senior meteorologist with weather.com for over 10 years after beginning his career with The Weather Channel in the early 2000s.
The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.
