Temperature Blanket Chart
A temperature blanket chart has two parts: the key that links a range of temperatures to a color, and the log of what each day turned out to be. Build both here from your own city’s weather.
1. City and year
285 US cities. Each one uses the nearest NOAA weather station that reports every day.
2. Temperature ranges and colors
Each band includes its lower number and stops just below its upper number. Free: up to 8 bands.
3. Style
4. Craft and gauge
Yards per stitch depends on yarn weight and stitch. The defaults are typical for worsted yarn; measure a swatch and edit them.
Pick a city to see its year
Your blanket appears here as soon as the weather loads: one colored row for every day, with the number of days and yards for each color.
Colors, days and yarn
| Color | Range °F | Days | Rows | Yards | Skeins | Match to your yarn |
|---|
Daily table: date, temperature, color
| Date | High °F | Color | Data |
|---|
The key: ranges and colors
The key is a short list. Each line is a band of temperatures, such as 50 to 59°F, with a yarn color. A common blanket uses eight to ten bands. The planner can set the bands for you: equal-width bands split the year’s range into even steps, and balanced-days bands choose the edges so each color gets about the same number of days. Or write your own, edit any number and drag in a different color.
Each band includes its lower number and stops just below the upper one, so 50 to 60 means 50 up to 59.9. The last band also includes its top number, so no day is left without a color.
The log: one line per day
The daily table under the preview lists every date with its temperature and color, so you can crochet or knit along without checking a weather site each morning. Days when the station sent no reading are flagged. By default they are estimated from the days on either side and marked “est.”; you can leave them gray instead.
The daily table is free to read and copy. The free planner covers any city and year, up to 8 color bands, the preview, counts and a daily table. The Planner Pack ($3.99, one-time) adds the printable chart, checklist and yarn list. See pricing.
The Planner Pack turns the same chart into a printable PDF with a tick box beside every day, plus a yarn shopping list, so the chart lives on the fridge instead of a screen.
Reading the numbers
Color counts add up to the length of the year, 365 days or 366 in a leap year. If you color by both the high and the low, there are two rows for every day and the counts add up to twice that. The yarn columns turn each color’s rows into yards with your gauge, so a color that covers 60 days needs more yarn than one that covers 6.
Questions
How many colors should I use?
Eight to ten is common: each color covers about 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Fewer colors make bold, long stripes. More colors show small changes but need more yarn colors to buy and more ends to weave in.
What happens when the station misses a day?
You choose. By default a missing day is estimated from the days around it and flagged “est.” in the daily table. You can also leave it gray as “no data” and decide at the loom or the hook.
What is in the printable PDF?
The Planner Pack PDF has a summary page with a yarn shopping list, the full blanket chart, and a daily checklist with a tick box, the temperature and the color for every day of the year, in Letter or A4.
Where does the weather come from?
From NOAA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, through its National Centers for Environmental Information daily summaries. Each city uses the nearest airport-grade weather station with a long record. NOAA data is public domain.