How late is too late in Fall to visit Cinque Terra?

We customarily travel to Italy in late September and have been to all the places you mention. Crowds are much less and the weather is great. We will be travelling in Italy for the entire month of September this year because it's such a great time to travel.

Joe,

We've also traveled to LC, Milan, CT & Florence at the end of September/beginning of October & the weather was great other than a few drizzly days while visiting Varenna & Milan this past October.

The Fall is my favorite time to travel abroad because the weather is still nice & the crowds are gone.

Many family owned hotels in CT/ LC start shutting down at the end of October or beginning of November due to the weather.

Make sure you pack a light waterproof jacket, just in case...

Enjoy your trip!

I would say end of Sep for Lake Como, and mid Oct for Cinque Terre.

Joe,

My preference would be no later than about mid-October in the Cinque Terre as weather could start to be an issue (keeping in mind that the devastating floods occurred on 25 Oct. a few years ago). There's not much to do in the C.T. if it's pouring rain. By the end of November, many of the tourist businesses will be shutting down for the season.

With Lake Como that's a bit more difficult to say without knowing where you plan to stay on the lake? If you're staying in one of the larger centres with big hotels, mid-October would probably still be fine in terms of the weather. However, if you're staying in a smaller town with mostly family run hotels, the situation may be different.

If you happen to be at the Cinque Terre during a spell of rain, even if it's August it's not going to be good.
Statistically the rainiest time in Italy is between the latter part of October and the first part of November. End of September is generally still warm, however I can't predict whether it will be rainy when you go. The last week or so the weather was nasty in Italy and we are already at the end of May when it should be nice and warm already. So who knows?

We went in twice to CT, both times in October at the same time, around the 26th of October . The first time, the sun shone, the weather was beautiful, we walked , sat by the water drinking wine and took the little ferry boat back to rio Maggiore where we stayed for 3 nights. Was gorgeous. The next time, it rains buckets and the wind howled and the sun peeped out in between torrential showers. We had the place to ourselves and the restaurants were empty. We had a gorgeous flat on the harbour and could leave the shutters open and watch the huge waves crashing, it was lovely. You a make it what you want.

Much mahalos!