What the weather actually does
November is the month Scottsdale was built for. Typical afternoons land around 76°F under a sky that stays clear for days at a stretch; mornings are low 50s and crisp; the air is so dry your lips notice. It’s the weather the resort brochures were photographed in, and for once the brochure isn’t lying.
The catch is the swing. A November day here can cover twenty-five degrees between dawn and lunch, and once the sun drops — before 5:30, since Arizona doesn’t change its clocks — the temperature falls fast. Patio dinners are wonderful and require a jacket. Late in the month the overnight lows can reach the 40s, and the first light frost shows up in the north-side neighborhoods some years. Rain is rare; a Pacific front might bring one gray day.
What’s on
This is the densest event month of the fall. Canal Convergence takes over the Scottsdale Waterfront for ten nights of free large-scale light art floating on the Arizona Canal — the city’s signature public-art event and the best reason to be downtown after dark. The Scottsdale Polo Championships fill WestWorld for a day of high-goal polo, car shows and Scottsdale in full peacock mode. The Scottsdale Film Festival spends ten days screening the world cinema that otherwise never reaches an Arizona theater.
Late in the month the Goodguys Southwest Nationals roll several thousand hot rods into WestWorld, the Arizona Fall League plays its final games at Scottsdale Stadium, and the holidays switch on: Christmas at the Princess and Scottsdazzle both typically open around Thanksgiving. Underneath it all, the Old Town Farmers Market runs every Saturday and ArtWalk every Thursday. (For the historians: the Grand Prix of Scottsdale ran a few Novembers in the 2010s and then didn’t.)
What to do
Walk the canal at night. Go to Canal Convergence on a weeknight, late. Start at the Soleri Bridge, walk east along the Waterfront, and eat afterward at Olive & Ivy or The Canal Club without a wait.
Hike anything, any hour. The McDowell Sonoran Preserve is at its best. Gateway Loop mid-morning, Tom’s Thumb on a weekday, Pinnacle Peak for sunset. The Gateway protocols are about parking now, not survival.
Do polo like a local. Buy the general-admission ticket, bring your own chair and a cooler, park early, and ignore the tents. The people-watching is the event.
Golf at peak. The rye is lush, the tee sheets are full, and golf without a membership is the difference between playing and wishing you had.
Eat on every patio you can. El Chorro under the heaters, Lon’s at the Hermosa by the fire, lunch at The Mission after the farmers market. Reserve. This is not the walk-in season.
Ride the Greenbelt at noon. The Indian Bend Wash is finally a midday ride; the cut-throughs link Chaparral to Eldorado without a sweat.
What to skip
- Thanksgiving week without a reservation — for the room, the dinner, or the tee time.
- WestWorld on polo day in your own car if you can avoid it. Getting around Scottsdale has the alternatives.
- Canal Convergence on opening Saturday if you hate crowds. Weeknight, later.
- Camelback at 9 a.m. on a weekend. It’s a parade. Go at 6:30 or hit the Preserve instead.
- Underdressing for dinner outside. The desert is 50° by dessert.
The local’s calendar
November is when the town is at full population. Snowbirds are fully arrived by Thanksgiving — the Canadian plates, the restaurant waits, the 4:30 p.m. dinner rush at the north-side places. Traffic on the 101, Frank Lloyd Wright and Scottsdale Road finds its winter weight and stays there until April.
Pool season is done for residents; the water’s in the 60s and only the resort pools are heated enough to bother. The patio heaters run every night. Fireplaces get lit for the first time. The citrus is coloring, the overseeded lawns look like a putting green, and every local with a hiking habit is out on the Preserve trails before work. School districts take the Thanksgiving week off, which fills the resorts with local families alongside the visitors.
For the resorts, November is high season proper. Thanksgiving weekend is a mini-peak — holiday dinners at The Phoenician, the Camelback Inn and the Princess sell out well ahead — and the rate cards step up again in December. The Princess spends the last week of the month flipping from resort to holiday theme park, and Old Town strings its lights along the Waterfront and Fifth Avenue for Scottsdazzle.
If you can only pick one fall month, this is it, on the condition that you booked it in September. October has the same afternoons with fewer people and slightly lower rates; December trades warm days for holiday lights and genuinely cold mornings.