November in Palm Beach County: Delray’s Turkey Trot, a Tree Lighting in Mizner Park, Zoo Lights on Thanksgiving Night, King Tides, the First Cold Front and the Start of Season (2026)

Oct 16

Quick answer: The 1991 to 2020 normals at the West Palm Beach airport slide from a high of 82 and a low of 69 on November 1 to 78 and 64 on the 30th, hurricane season officially ends November 30, and a strong El Niño is forecast for this winter, which usually means a cool, wet one here. The dates: Veterans Day ceremonies in Delray Beach at 9 and Boca Raton from 4 to 8 on Wednesday the 11th; Zoo Lights opening Friday the 20th and running every night through the holiday week, Thanksgiving night included; the 40th Delray Beach Turkey Trot, Boca's tree lighting in Mizner Park, the Manatee Lagoon season kickoff and the Billie Jean King Cup playoff, United States against Hungary in Delray Beach, all on Saturday the 21st; Holiday and Horses at Wellington International from Thanksgiving Day through the 29th; and king tides November 22 to 29, with the 24th to the 27th within three inches of flood stage. Delray's 100-foot tree, Sandi's lighting in West Palm Beach and the Palm Beach Holiday Boat Parade all land the first week of December. If you're buying, property tax bills come out by November 1 with a 4 percent discount for paying in the month, and a closing before December 31 sets you up for the 2027 homestead exemption.

I like November here better than I like December, and the reason is simple. December is season at full volume: the galas, the traffic on Okeechobee, the wait for a Saturday table on Atlantic Avenue. November is the month the switch gets flipped. The first real front comes through, the humidity leaves, the people with second homes start showing up on the Thursday flights, and the county is outside doing things again before anyone has decided to be busy. Here's what I'd put on the calendar, with the dates I could confirm in mid October on the organizers' own pages. Things change; check before you drive.

The weather, and November 30

The 1991 to 2020 normals for the airport in West Palm Beach go from a high of 82 and a low of 69 on November 1 to 80 and 66 at mid month to 78 and 64 on the 30th. Normal daily rainfall runs about a tenth to an eighth of an inch a day through the month, which by my arithmetic is something like three and a half inches, most of it arriving in the day or two ahead of each front. I couldn't find a published median date for the first morning below 60 in West Palm Beach, so I won't invent one. In a normal year you'll get your first one in November, you'll see people in puffer jackets at the Saturday market, and it'll be 78 by lunch.

Two things are different this year. First, El Niño. The Climate Prediction Center's October 8 discussion has us under an El Niño Advisory, with a strong to very strong event likely to last through January to March at better than an 83 percent chance, and it says the chances remain high for a historic event stronger than anything since 1950. The Miami forecast office's own climate page puts the local translation plainly: El Niño winters here are usually cool and wet. The October 15 drought statement from that office already leans the same way, with the Climate Prediction Center at 50 to 60 percent odds of above-normal rain for November through January and drought removal across South Florida expected by the end of January. We could use it. The airport had 35.69 inches from May 1 through October 14, about 3 inches and 8 percent below normal, and Lake Okeechobee stood at 12.39 feet, 2.65 feet under its normal 15.04. Second, hurricane season. The National Hurricane Center's season runs June 1 to November 30, with the peak on September 10, so the last day of this month is the day the shutters can honestly go back in the garage. The Center notes storms sometimes form outside those dates, but for a buyer trying to time a move, December 1 is as good a line as you'll get.

King tides over Thanksgiving week

The City of West Palm Beach's 2026 forecast lists two more king tide windows after the October one: November 22 through 29 and December 22 through 27. The days it flags as within three inches of flood stage are November 24 through 27, which is Tuesday through Friday of Thanksgiving week. The city says a king tide lasts about three hours, that you can see it an hour and a half to two hours either side of the peak, that the low streets near the Intracoastal and some low spots away from it can get sunny-day flooding, and that boaters should expect less clearance under the fixed bridges. Don't drive through it, don't park on a low street that week, and if you want to report it in your neighborhood the number is (561) 822-2185. I'll come back to why this matters if you're house hunting.

Veterans Day week

Two ceremonies I can confirm, both on Wednesday, November 11. Delray Beach holds its Veterans Day Ceremony at 9 in the morning in the Vintage Gym at Old School Square, 51 North Swinton Avenue, with speakers, music and the presentation of honors; questions go to the city's Parks and Recreation special events line, (561) 243-7250, option 3. Boca Raton does Red, White and Boca that evening, 4 to 8 at the Mizner Park Amphitheater, 590 Plaza Real, free: speakers, live music, a Veterans Marketplace of service organizations and veteran-owned businesses, and a classic car show on the east lawn with awards at 6:50. West Palm Beach, Wellington, Palm Beach Gardens, Jupiter and Boynton Beach all either hadn't posted a 2026 Veterans Day program or wouldn't load for me, so call those cities directly; I'm not going to guess at a time. The next night, Thursday the 12th, Clematis by Night has Terry Hanck on the Great Lawn in downtown West Palm Beach, 6 to 9, free, which is a good way to end the week.

The season starts, by the numbers

People ask me when season begins and I give them the airport. Palm Beach International publishes a monthly traffic report. Last year it handled 498,729 passengers in September and 743,251 in November, which is about half again as many, and November was up 2.7 percent on the November before. That jump is season. The restaurants know it, the tee sheets know it, and so does the left lane on I-95 at Okeechobee.

The horse world is already back. Wellington International, at 3400 Equestrian Club Drive, runs Holiday and Horses CSI4* Thursday, November 26 through Sunday the 29th, which means Thanksgiving Day through the holiday weekend, with general admission free and open to visitors during the day Thursday through Sunday. The Winter Equestrian Festival itself opens with Premiere Week January 6 to 10, 2027, also free during the day Wednesday through Sunday, with daytime valet at $20. Polo is the one I can't pin down from the source. Discover The Palm Beaches lists the Palm Beach Polo Season at the National Polo Center, 3667 120th Avenue South in Wellington, as December 27, 2026 through May 2, 2027, while the same listing's description says January through April; the Polo Center's own site had no 2027 Sunday schedule posted when I checked, so take January as the safe answer and watch their page.

And tennis. The Billie Jean King Cup Playoff between the United States and Hungary is Saturday, November 21 and Sunday, November 22 at the Delray Beach Tennis Center, 201 West Atlantic Avenue, with gates at noon and the first ball at 1:30 each day. It's a best-of-five tie: two singles Saturday, doubles and up to two more singles Sunday, Lindsay Davenport captaining the Americans, two-day packages from $50 through Ticketmaster. The downtown authority says the U.S. is 4 and 0 at that stadium. If you've never sat in the city's tennis stadium a few blocks off the Avenue, this is the inexpensive way to find out what the Delray Beach Open feels like in February.

Holiday kickoff, in order

Palm Beach Zoo's Zoo Lights opens Friday, November 20 and runs on select nights through the holidays. In November that's every night from the 20th through the 29th, 5 to 9, with Friday the 27th and Saturday the 28th running to 10, and the zoo's calendar marks Thursday the 26th "open on Thanksgiving night." The 21-and-up nights don't start until December, so every November night is for everybody. The calendar doesn't print prices, so check the zoo's ticket portal for the night you want.

Saturday, November 21 is the big night. Boca Raton's Holiday Tree Lighting is 6 to 10 at the Mizner Park Amphitheater, free, with the ceremony at 7:30 led by the mayor, which also flips on Mizner Park's display of about 50,000 LED lights on 75 palm trees. Live music at 6:20, 7:40 and 8:40, selfies with Santa at the art museum from 6 to 10, a holiday market, a craft station, food and drink for sale. Plaza Real's interior roads close at 5, chairs rent on site and outside chairs aren't allowed, and each person can bring one unopened bottle of water. That same morning, Manatee Lagoon, the center at 6000 North Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach next to the FPL plant, holds its Manatee Season Kickoff, 10 to 3, free admission and parking, with conservation exhibitors, mini lectures on manatee migration and the Lake Worth Lagoon, crafts, a 10:30 story time and food trucks. The center's rule of thumb for when the manatees start piling into the warm outflow next door is the lagoon dropping to 68 degrees or colder, which is a cold-front number.

Clematis by Night is Thursdays 6 to 9 on the Great Lawn on the West Palm Beach waterfront: Cover to Cover on the 5th, Terry Hanck the 12th, Big Al and the Heavyweights the 19th, and no concert on the 26th, which the city's schedule marks simply "Happy Thanksgiving."

Now the ones people ask me about that are actually December. Delray's 100-foot Christmas tree gets lit Tuesday, December 1 at Old School Square, 6 to 9, with Santa flipping the switch at 7 and Atlantic closed from Swinton to Northeast 5th. The tree started as a 50-footer in 1993, bought by the downtown authority to help bring the downtown back, grew to 100 feet for the city's centennial two years later, and you can walk inside it; the skating rink, carousel and mini golf in Santa's village stay through New Year's Day. Sandi, West Palm Beach's sand-sculpture tree on the waterfront, gets her lighting at the December 3 Clematis by Night, 6 to 10, an hour longer than usual, and comes back for Sandi's New Year's Eve on the 31st. The Palm Beach Holiday Boat Parade is Saturday, December 5 at 6, rain or shine, from North Palm Beach up the Intracoastal to a fireworks finale at the Jupiter Lighthouse around 8, with Toys for Tots and Little Smiles pickups along the route; the public viewing list runs from the North Palm Beach Country Club through Bert Winters and Juno parks to Sawfish Bay, Lighthouse Park and Harbourside, and boaters who register by November 19 get the $50 deposit waived. None of that is November, but all of it books up in November.

Thanksgiving week: the trot and the table

The Delray Beach Turkey Trot, the 40th one, is Saturday, November 21, not Thursday. It starts and finishes at Anchor Park, 340 South Ocean Boulevard, at 7:30 in the morning, and it's $39.50 timed or $34.50 untimed through 11:59 the night before, then it goes up. The packet has a 40th-anniversary shirt and a finisher medal. Running A1A at sunrise with the whole town is a fine way to meet Delray. I looked for the Thanksgiving-morning trots up the county and on the island and couldn't open a 2026 page for any of them, so I'm not listing start times I can't confirm; if you have one you run every year, assume it's on and check its page.

On the table. I couldn't find a reliable 2026 list of restaurants doing Thanksgiving dinner and I'm not going to make one up. The one I can point to is Honeybelle at the PGA Resort, 400 Avenue of the Champions in Palm Beach Gardens, which is taking prepaid orders for a to-go feast for six to eight, whole roasted heritage turkey, cornbread stuffing, the pies, for $299 plus plus, meaning tax and service on top, through noon on Wednesday, November 25. Book anything on the water early. Clematis by Night is dark on Thanksgiving, Zoo Lights is open that night, and if you'd rather spend the afternoon somewhere with horses, Holiday and Horses is running in Wellington with free daytime admission.

Outside: sailfish and the first front

I'll give you the FWC facts and leave the fish stories to the charter captains at the inlet. Sailfish are open year-round in Florida, one billfish per person per day across all the billfish species, minimum 63 inches lower jaw to fork, and almost everybody releases them. In federal waters you need the federal HMS angling permit, you may not lift a sailfish you intend to release out of the water, and any billfish you do land has to be reported to NOAA within 24 hours. What the regulations won't tell you, and what I will as an opinion rather than a statistic, is that the Palm Beach sailfish calendar is a winter calendar and it starts when the fronts do, which is why November is when the boats at the inlet marinas start getting washed every morning. If a boat is coming with your house, this is the month to go stand on the Jupiter or Boynton jetty on a northeast wind and decide which inlet you are.

If you're buying or selling this month

Property tax bills in Palm Beach County are mailed by November 1, more than 600,000 of them, and the discount is 4 percent for paying in November, 3 in December, 2 in January, 1 in February, none in March, delinquent April 1. If you're under contract, the title company prorates it at closing. More important for a buyer: the homestead exemption requires you to own and live in the house as your permanent residence on January 1 and to file with the Property Appraiser by March 1, and the Appraiser's page is blunt that missing the deadline waives the exemption for that year. So a closing any time before December 31 sets you up for 2027. The exemption is $25,000 on the first $50,000 of assessed value, including school taxes, plus an additional exemption on value above $50,000 that doesn't apply to school taxes and was capped at $25,722 for 2025. Homestead also starts the Save Our Homes cap, which limits your assessment increase to 3 percent a year. If you're coming from another Florida homestead, the exemption doesn't transfer by itself; you file a new application, and you should ask about portability of your old cap at the same time.

Then do two things that only make sense in November. First, if the house is anywhere near the water, drive the street at the morning high tide between November 24 and 27 and see what a king tide does to it, then get an elevation certificate and a real flood quote before you fall in love. Second, remember what El Niño means here. If the forecasters are right about a cool, wet winter, the house you see with the windows open on a dry 75-degree afternoon in November is also the house whose gutters, grading and drainage are about to get tested in January. Look at the downspouts, look at where the yard sends water, and ask about the roof. The relocation page covers the towns from Tequesta to Boca, the buying page covers the process, and if you'd rather just ask, send me a message.

Questions people ask about November here

What is the weather like in Palm Beach County in November?

The 1991 to 2020 normals at the West Palm Beach airport go from a high of 82 and a low of 69 on November 1 to 78 and 64 on November 30, with about a tenth to an eighth of an inch of rain a day in the normals. The Climate Prediction Center expects a strong El Niño this winter, which the Miami forecast office says usually means cooler, wetter conditions in South Florida.

When does hurricane season end?

The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30 according to the National Hurricane Center, with the climatological peak on September 10. Storms occasionally form outside those dates, but November 30 is the official end.

Are there turkey trots in Palm Beach County on Thanksgiving?

The one I could confirm for 2026 is the 40th Delray Beach Turkey Trot 5K, which is Saturday, November 21, not Thanksgiving Day, starting at 7:30 at Anchor Park on South Ocean Boulevard, $39.50 timed or $34.50 untimed before race day. The Thanksgiving-morning races elsewhere in the county had not posted 2026 pages I could open when this was written.

When are the king tides in West Palm Beach in November 2026?

The City of West Palm Beach's 2026 forecast lists a king tide period of November 22 through 29, with high tides within three inches of flood stage November 24 through 27. Expect sunny-day flooding on low streets near the Intracoastal and less clearance under fixed bridges around each peak.

When is the Boca Raton tree lighting?

Saturday, November 21, 2026, 6 to 10 at the Mizner Park Amphitheater, free, with the lighting ceremony at 7:30. Delray Beach's 100-foot tree is lit Tuesday, December 1, and West Palm Beach lights Sandi at the December 3 Clematis by Night.

When do the polo and equestrian seasons start in Wellington?

Wellington International runs Holiday and Horses CSI4* November 26 to 29, 2026, with free daytime admission, and the Winter Equestrian Festival opens with Premiere Week January 6 to 10, 2027. Discover The Palm Beaches lists the polo season at the National Polo Center as December 27, 2026 to May 2, 2027, but the center itself had not posted a 2027 schedule when this was written.

Does a November closing get me the homestead exemption?

If you own and live in the home as your permanent residence on January 1, 2027, and file with the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser by March 1, you can receive the homestead exemption for 2027. Any closing before December 31 works; missing the March 1 filing deadline waives the exemption for that year.

Talk with William. If you're thinking about Palm Beach County, November is the month to come see it with the windows open. I'll line up houses from Jupiter to Boca Raton around a trot, a tree lighting or a Sunday at the horse show. Call or text (772) 800-2274 or send a message.

General information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Prices, fees and club rules change; confirm current details with the club and association. William Merchant, REALTOR®, RE/MAX Gold. Each RE/MAX office is independently owned and operated.

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William Merchant