Environmental temperature changes can affect your readings differently depending on whether you use a wearable device or a basal thermometer. Please skip to the section that applies to your specific device.
Measuring with a wearable device
Significant changes to your sleeping environment, such as a considerable increase or decrease in environmental temperature, can affect your skin temperature. In most cases, if the change in the environmental temperature is significant, the NC° algorithm will notice that the temperature is unusual and should exclude it.
If it doesn't happen, we recommend excluding the nights you experienced these changes so the algorithm doesn’t take these temperatures into account. To do so, click Sick or Hungover on the Add Data page below your temperature to indicate to the algorithm that something was different for you these nights, and the temperature will be excluded.
Rest assured that temperature fluctuations don’t affect Natural Cycles’ effectiveness as a birth control method, but they may lead to more Red Days. Natural Cycles’ effectiveness rates across all devices are closely monitored, and you can learn more about this here: How effective is NC° Birth Control?.
Measuring with a basal thermometer
Weather changes will not affect your basal body temperature (when measured with a basal thermometer), as your body is very good at maintaining its optimal temperature. You can continue measuring as usual, even if the temperature increases or decreases due to seasonal changes.
However, our best advice is to trust your judgment and always exclude your temperature if you feel like something is different.
If you're experiencing a significant, sudden increase in outdoor temperatures, for example, in the event of a heatwave or when traveling to a very different climate than where you live, then we recommend that you continue measuring to keep up the habit, but exclude the temperature on the very first morning if you're feeling different because of the weather. After the first morning, you can continue logging your temperature as usual.
To learn more about measuring while traveling, see this article Can I measure while traveling?