Temperature Blanket Planner

Knit & crochet

Pick your city and year. Get every day's temperature, a colour for each, the rows per colour and a day-by-day list to download.

Quick answer. Use one row per day and about 9 colours: bands of 10°F from below 20°F to 90°F and up, or 5°C bands from below -10°C to 25°C and up. A full year is 365 rows (366 in a leap year).

Source: NOAA Global Historical Climatology Network daily highs and lows.

Your temperature blanket

City Year Temperature Units Colours First band starts at Degrees per band Yards per row (optional)

Pick a city and year, then get temperatures. Weather data comes from NOAA.

Starting colour bands

Default temperature ranges in Fahrenheit and Celsius
Colour	Fahrenheit	Celsius
1	Below 20°F	Below -10°C
2	20 to 29°F	-10 to -6°C
3	30 to 39°F	-5 to -1°C
4	40 to 49°F	0 to 4°C
5	50 to 59°F	5 to 9°C
6	60 to 69°F	10 to 14°C
7	70 to 79°F	15 to 19°C
8	80 to 89°F	20 to 24°C
9	90°F and up	25°C and up

The two scales are separate starting points, not conversions of each other. Hot places may want more bands at the top, cold places more at the bottom.

Planning tips

Run last year first to see which bands you actually use, then buy yarn.
Buy an extra skein of the two or three busiest colours.
Starting this year? Make the rows so far now, then add one a day.
Add a thin border colour every month so the year is easy to read.

Sources

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Climatology Network Daily (public domain). https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/land-based-station/global-historical-climatology-network-daily
GeoNames city list, CC BY 4.0. https://www.geonames.org/

Common questions

How does a temperature blanket work?

You knit or crochet one row (or one square) a day, and the colour of each row shows that day's temperature. After a year you have 365 rows that map the weather.

How many colours do I need for a temperature blanket?

Most use 8 to 12. With bands of 10°F from below 20°F to 90°F and up you need 9 colours; in Celsius, 5°C bands from below -10°C to 25°C and up is also 9.

Should I use the high or low temperature?

The daily high is most common. Some makers use the low, or the average of the two for a calmer blanket.

Where do the temperatures come from?

NOAA's Global Historical Climatology Network, which includes US weather stations and Environment Canada stations. The planner uses the nearest station with data each day and fills gaps from the next nearest.

How much yarn does a temperature blanket take?

Work one row, unravel it and measure it, then enter yards per row. The colour table shows the yarn for each colour from the number of days in its band.

Why are the last few days missing?

Station data reaches NOAA after a short delay, usually days to a couple of weeks, so the current year stops at the latest day available.