Through the long summer Dubai lives indoors, passing from car to mall to hotel lobby along an unbroken chain of air conditioning. In November the chain breaks. Afternoons settle around 31°C and evenings cool to about 20°C, so that walking between two buildings becomes a choice again rather than a dare. Rain is close to a rumour. As a place to be warm without being punished for it, Dubai in November is hard to fault, which is why the better hotels fill early.
The coast shows the change first. The beach clubs along Jumeirah and the Palm have reopened, and the Gulf has not yet let go of the summer's heat, so a swim late in the afternoon asks for no courage at all. Kite Beach, which costs nothing, fills at either end of the day with runners and yoga classes, pursued with the zeal of people making up for five lost months.
Dinner on a terrace stops being an act of endurance. Take a layer anyway, less for the terrace than for the restaurant behind it, whose air conditioning has not heard the news. Early in the month there is also Dubai Design Week, which usually takes over Dubai Design District with a programme that is mostly free to walk into.
The authorities, having noticed the zeal, have made a festival of it. The Dubai Fitness Challenge asks for thirty minutes of exercise a day for thirty days, most or all of them in November, with free classes laid on across the city. It closes with the Dubai Run, on a Sunday morning late in the month, when Sheikh Zayed Road is shut to cars and handed to people on foot. Entry is free if you register, and the 5km route finishes on Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Boulevard at the foot of the Burj Khalifa, a better view of the tower than anything they sell at the top.