November: The Swell Shows Up, The Light Doesn't

October eases you in. The water is still carrying the summer, the swell turns up now and then, and you can kid yourself it's an extended autumn. November doesn't bother with any of that.

This is the month the Atlantic properly wakes up. The swell gets bigger and more consistent, the wind gets busier, the water drops a couple of degrees and the light is gone before most people have finished work. It's also the month the beaches empty out. If you can get the timing right, November has some of the best surf of the year. If you can't, it has a lot of blown-out mornings and a car park in the rain.

Here's what changes, and how to get the good days out of it.

The swell gets serious

Through the autumn, the low pressure systems crossing the Atlantic get deeper and track further south. That means more swell, generated over longer distances, arriving more often. The Met Office starts naming storms. In practice:

• Longer periods. Summer swell might be 7 or 8 seconds. In November it's common to see 12 to 16. Longer-period swell carries more energy, wraps further into bays and turns up bigger at the beach than the height on the chart suggests.
• Bigger sets, longer lulls. You can sit through ten minutes of nothing and then get caught inside by a set twice the size of anything you've seen. Watch for a full set cycle before you paddle out.
• Places that need size start working. Reefs, points and sheltered corners that sit flat all summer finally get enough swell to break.

If you're not sure how to read period and direction together, our guide to reading a UK surf forecast covers it in a few minutes.

The wind gets busier

The same weather systems bringing the swell also bring the wind. Fronts come through every couple of days, often with strong south-westerlies, and the west-facing beaches spend a lot of November blown out.

• Look for shelter. On a big south-westerly, the spots facing north or east, or tucked in behind a headland, are often the only clean water around.
• Watch for the swing. The best day of a November week is often the one after the storm, when the wind swings north-west or drops off and the swell is still there.
• Go early. Wind often builds through the day. The first couple of hours of light are the best bet for something glassy.

The water drops

The sea loses another couple of degrees through the month. Long-term averages run roughly from 15°C down to 13°C in Cornwall, 13°C to 11°C in the North Sea and 12°C to 11°C on the north coast of Scotland. It keeps falling until March.

For most people, that means the switch to a 5/4 by the end of the month, plus boots. Gloves come in once your hands stop working on the paddle out, and a hood is worth having in the car for windy days. The full month-by-month table is in UK sea temperatures by month, and the kit is covered in what to wear surfing in winter.

The light runs out

The clocks have already gone back, and the days keep shortening all month. By the end of November the sun sets around half past four in the south west and before four in the far north. Sunrise slides later towards eight.

The after-work session is gone. Dawn before work is still possible early in the month, then lunchtime and weekends take over. Our piece on surfing when the clocks go back has the details on making the light work.

It's quieter, and that cuts both ways

The best bit of November is the empty line-up. The worst bit is the empty beach. Most RNLI lifeguard patrols finished at the end of the season, so on most beaches nobody is watching. With bigger swell and stronger rips, the margins are smaller.

• Don't surf big days alone. If you do go on your own, tell someone where you are and when you'll be back.
• Know when to watch. A big swell on a spring tide can turn a beach you know into something you don't. Sitting it out is a perfectly good session.
• Check the rips before you paddle out. Bigger surf moves more water, and the channels get stronger.

If you see someone in trouble in the water, call 999 and ask for the Coastguard.

The car park gets colder

The session is the easy part. In November, the cold that gets you is the fifteen minutes afterwards, in the wind, with hands that have stopped taking instructions.

Lay it all out before you go in: a changing mat to stand on, a beanie where you can find it by feel, and something heavy you can pull on over wet hair, like the 385gsm Location Withheld Hood. The full routine is in how to change in a car park, and the bit after that in how to warm up after a cold surf.

The short version

• More swell, longer periods, bigger sets than the chart suggests.
• More wind: find shelter and wait for the day after the storm.
• Water drops a couple of degrees: 5/4 and boots by the end of the month.
• Sunset before half four: dawn, lunchtime and weekends.
• Lifeguards are mostly gone: don't surf big days alone.

November rewards the people who keep checking. For the rest of the winter, the UK surf season guide covers what each month gives you.

Kit built for exactly these conditions, not the brochure version. svrf.uk