November settles Colorado into the threshold of winter, as the last cottonwood gold falls along the rivers and the wintering raptors and waterfowl reclaim the plains. Bald eagles return to the open rivers, the high country lies under early snow, and the long, cold, exceptionally clear nights bring back the brilliant winter sky and the Leonid meteors.
Week by week in November
October 29 – November 4
- Winter sparrows arrive in force — white-crowned, tree, and Lincoln's sparrows fill the brushy plains edges.
- The final gold falls from the plains cottonwoods, leaving their pale trunks bare against the gray sky.
- Keep up winter watering on warm days and finish draining hoses and irrigation before hard freeze-up.
- The cured native grasses and dried seedheads stand against the sky, feeding the gathering finches and juncos.
November 5–11
- Bald eagles gather along the open South Platte and Arkansas and below the reservoir dams as the lakes ice.
- The early sunset means a full sky of stars by dinnertime as the winter constellations rise in the east.
- Mulch perennial crowns and garlic deeply against Colorado's brutal freeze-thaw heaving.
- The Rocky Mountain junipers stand laden with frosted blue berry-cones, the winter larder for solitaires.
November 12–18
- The Leonid meteor shower peaks around mid-November, radiating from Leo rising after midnight.
- The first rosy-finches may drop to the foothill feeders around Allenspark as deep high-country snow pushes them down.
- Front Range indoor winter markets take over with storage potatoes, squash, and high-tunnel spinach.
- Mourning cloaks and tortoiseshells have tucked into bark and woodpiles to overwinter as adults.
November 19–25
- Rough-legged and ferruginous hawks and prairie falcons hunt the open Pawnee National Grassland.
- Give every tree, shrub, and evergreen a final deep soak before the ground freezes for the dry winter.
- The foothill Gambel oak holds its rusty marcescent leaves, rattling through the gathering winter.
- Orion climbs the eastern evening sky as the brilliant winter stars return in force.
November 26 – December 2
- The last sandhill cranes clear the San Luis Valley for the south as winter settles over the plains.
- Protect young trunks from sunscald and from elk, deer, and rabbits driven down by the mountain snow.
- San Luis Valley potatoes, dried pinto beans, and cold-sweetened spinach anchor the lean winter markets.
- The bare white aspen stripe the snow-dusted slopes between the dark, snow-laden conifers.
Birds This Month
November is the turn into the Colorado winter birding season. The wintering raptors are now firmly back on the eastern plains and the Pawnee National Grassland — rough-legged hawks, ferruginous hawks, golden eagles, prairie falcons, and northern harriers hunt the open grass — and bald eagles gather along the open reaches of the South Platte and Arkansas rivers and below the reservoir dams as the lakes begin to ice. Ducks and geese pack onto the open water.
The winter feeder and town birds settle in: dark-eyed juncos in their several western forms, American tree sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, cedar waxwings, northern flickers, and the foothill mix of mountain chickadees, Steller's jays, Cassin's finches, and pine siskins. Townsend's solitaires sing thin winter songs from the juniper berry crops they guard.
By late month, the high-country specialties begin to return to reachable elevations: the first rosy-finches may appear at the foothill feeders around Allenspark and Estes Park as deep snow pushes them down, and the white-tailed ptarmigan turn white on the alpine tundra. The last sandhill cranes clear the San Luis Valley for the south.
This month's tip: stock and clean your feeders now for the winter season ahead — the foothill and Front Range feeder flocks build through November, and a reliable feeder may draw the first rosy-finches down from the high country on the coldest, snowiest days.
What's Blooming
The Colorado wildflower season is over by November, ended by hard freezes across the state, but the dormant landscape settles into its winter character. On the eastern plains, the cured native grasses are the show now — blue grama, buffalograss, and little bluestem stand in fawn, copper, and wine-red, catching the low sun and the wind, and the silver of fringed sage and the last bronze of rabbitbrush dot the slopes.
What color remains is in seed and structure. The dried seedheads of sunflower, gayfeather, prairie sunflower, and yucca stand against the sky, feeding wintering finches, juncos, and sparrows, and the flat green-and-gray basal rosettes of next year's penstemons, evening primrose, and prairie sunflower press against the cooling soil, already waiting for spring. The green bayonets of soapweed yucca hold their color across the plains, and the foothill Gambel oak drops its last leaves, leaving the grassland and scrub to their long winter rest.
Garden This Month
November is the final winter-prep month in the Colorado garden, and the single most important ongoing task is one many gardeners forget: winter watering. Colorado's winters are dry and intensely sunny, and trees, shrubs, evergreens, and new plantings desiccate and die from lack of water far more often than from cold. On any warm day when the soil is not frozen — through November and all winter — give woody plants a deep soak; plants that go into winter well watered come through far better.
Finish the rest of the winter prep now. Mulch perennial crowns, garlic, and strawberries deeply against Colorado's brutal freeze-thaw heaving, wrap young tree trunks with light-colored guards to prevent the sunscald that splits bark on bright cold afternoons, and protect young trees and shrubs from hungry deer, elk, and rabbits. Harvest the last frost-sweetened kale, spinach, carrots, and Brussels sprouts, drain and store hoses and irrigation lines, clean and oil tools, and take the soil tests and plan the garden through the long winter ahead.
Zone 4b (mountain towns and high foothills): the garden is fully bedded down for the long mountain winter. Make sure perennial crowns, garlic, and strawberries are deeply mulched, young tree trunks are wrapped against sunscald and protected from elk, deer, and rabbits, and hoses and irrigation are drained and stored. Give woody plants a final deep soak during any unfrozen spell.
Zone 5a (cooler Front Range and foothill edges): finish the winter prep. Mulch perennials and garlic, wrap young trunks, drain irrigation, and deep-water trees and evergreens on the warmer days before hard freeze-up. Hardy greens like kale and spinach may still hold under a low tunnel for a final cutting.
Zone 5b (Front Range cities — Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs): the season is closing but the work isn't done. Keep up winter watering of trees, shrubs, and evergreens on any warm day with unfrozen soil — this is critical in Colorado's dry winters. Finish mulching, wrap young trunks against sunscald, and harvest the last frost-sweetened greens, carrots, and Brussels sprouts.
What's at the Farmers Market
By November the Colorado outdoor market season has largely closed, and the winter and indoor markets of the Front Range — Denver, Boulder, Longmont, and Fort Collins — take over with the storage and protected crops that carry the cold months. The tables run on the harvest's keepers: winter squash and pumpkins, San Luis Valley potatoes, storage onions, carrots, beets, parsnips, and the new crop of dried pinto beans.
High tunnels keep fresh greens coming — cold-hardy spinach (sweet now after the frosts), kale, arugula, and microgreens — and the last hardy field crops like Brussels sprouts and storage cabbage appear. Colorado pantry staples anchor the season: local honey, eggs, grass-fed beef, bison, and lamb, milled flour, and the roasted and frozen Pueblo green chiles many growers still carry.
For selection and storage: store winter squash and pumpkins in a cool, dry room where they keep for months; keep potatoes and onions cool, dark, and airy, never refrigerated; trim root-crop tops before refrigerating; and store dried beans and flour airtight and cool. Store tunnel greens dry and loosely bagged and use them within a few days.
Night Sky This Month
November opens the long, cold, brilliantly clear night season over Colorado's dark skies, with the dry autumn air giving outstanding transparency. The certified dark-sky destinations shine now under early darkness — Great Sand Dunes National Park beneath the Sangre de Cristos, the dark-sky town of Westcliffe-Silver Cliff and its Smokey Jack Observatory, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Dinosaur National Monument, and Jackson Lake State Park on the plains. The early sunset means you can be under a full sky of stars by dinnertime.
The autumn constellations fill the evening — the great square of Pegasus, Andromeda with its naked-eye galaxy overhead, and the W of Cassiopeia — while the brilliant winter sky rises in the east, the Pleiades and Taurus clearing the horizon and Orion climbing by late evening. The Leonid meteor shower peaks around mid-November, a fast shower radiating from Leo rising after midnight, modest most years but capable of surprises.
Because the exact Leonid peak and planet positions change each year, check the printable Colorado night-sky guide for this year's specific viewing nights and planet visibility from your latitude. The clear, cold nights behind passing fronts give the steadiest seeing — dress for serious cold at altitude.
Butterflies & Pollinators
November is the closing of the Colorado butterfly year, but the state's hardiest species are present, simply hidden away. The mourning cloak, Colorado's most cold-tolerant butterfly, and the Milbert's and California tortoiseshells have tucked themselves into their overwintering shelters — beneath loose cottonwood and aspen bark, in woodpiles, foothill rock crevices, and outbuildings — where they pass the cold as adults. On a rare warm, sunny early-November afternoon along the Front Range, a mourning cloak may still flutter out to bask before retreating for good.
The rest of Colorado's butterflies are locked in winter dormancy in other forms, scaled to altitude. The state insect, the Colorado hairstreak, waits as an egg against the dormant buds of foothill Gambel oak; the alpine species — the Rocky Mountain parnassian and the tundra fritillaries and arctics — sleep frozen as eggs and tiny larvae beneath the deepening high-country snow; and the swallowtails of the canyons overwinter as chrysalides on dead stems and bark. Leaving leaf litter, dead stems, standing native plants, and brush piles intact through the winter is the single best thing a Colorado yard can do to shelter them all.
What to plant for them is in the Colorado native plants guide
Trees This Month
November strips the last color from the Colorado lowlands and brings the tree year to rest. The final gold drops from the great plains cottonwoods along the rivers, leaving their massive pale trunks bare against the gray plains sky, their limbs now revealing the bulky stick nests of red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, and the returning bald eagles. The foothill Gambel oak holds its rusty marcescent leaves, rattling through the coming winter.
The high country is fully into winter. The quaking aspen stand bare and white on the snow-dusted slopes, and the dark evergreens — Colorado blue spruce, Engelmann spruce, ponderosa pine, subalpine fir, lodgepole, and the ancient bristlecone pines — carry their first heavy snow loads. In the foothills and canyons, the Rocky Mountain junipers stand deep green and laden with frosted blue berry-cones, the crucial winter food that Townsend's solitaires, robins, and waxwings will defend and depend on through the long cold months ahead.
The Colorado native plants guide covers what grows with them
Weather & Daylight
Across Colorado, a typical November day averages a high near 48°F and a low near 22°F, with about 1.1 inches of precipitation — statewide averages from the 1991–2020 U.S. climate normals.
Raw and gray, highs near 48F and nights back down in the low 20s as the year turns cold again.
| Average high | 48°F |
|---|---|
| Average low | 22°F |
| Precipitation | 1.1 in |
| Sunrise (mid-month) | 6:45 MT |
| Sunset (mid-month) | 16:48 MT |
Figures are statewide averages over the 1991–2020 U.S. climate normals; local conditions vary with elevation and distance from the coast. Sunrise and sunset are computed for a midstate point on the 15th (MT).
Next month's version of this page, by email
One short note when Colorado's next month turns — what's arriving, blooming, and worth a night outside.
Go deeper with the Colorado guides
The complete Colorado birding, native-plant, and night-sky references — or the whole year, week by week, in one book.
Same month elsewhere: November in Connecticut · November in Delaware · November in Washington, D.C.