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Change over time

Cycle plot

Shows observations across years within seasonal groups, often with a mean for each season.

  • Plot
  • Seasonality
  • Comparison

What it answers

What recurring seasonal pattern persists across years?

Shape
Seasonal groups with within-group traces
What it shows
Seasonal strength and within-season variation.

Example

The question

Does each weekday follow the same trend over recent weeks?

Orders by weekday over the last eight weeks (cycle plot)

Orders by weekday over the last eight weeks (cycle plot)Seven groups, one per weekday, each showing eight weeks with its average as a pink line. Fridays are highest; weekend orders are falling while Thursday to Saturday rise.Orders per day150250350450MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
Orders by weekday over the last eight weeks (cycle plot)Seven groups, one per weekday, each showing eight weeks with its average as a pink line. Fridays are highest; weekend orders are falling while Thursday to Saturday rise.Orders per day150250350450MonTueWedThuFriSatSun
Seven groups, one per weekday, each showing eight weeks with its average as a pink line. Fridays are highest; weekend orders are falling while Thursday to Saturday rise.

Illustrative data. It belongs to no company.

When to use it

Use it when

Comparing month-of-year patterns across several years.

Avoid it when

When a standard chronological line is easier or cycles are poorly defined.

How to read it

Read each seasonal group and its within-group trace or mean.

Note

Often a synonym or close variant of VIS-034.

The data you need

Layout
Long table
Fields
Cycle: year or cycle ID; Season: ordered month/quarter/etc.; Value: number
One row is
One seasonal position within a cycle. What is the grain?
Rules
Define the repeating cycle and season order. Do not sort month labels alphabetically.
Optional
Alternative: Date,Value with cycle and season derived from dates.
Preparation
Parse and sort timestamps or sequence positions; aggregate duplicates deliberately and preserve gaps. Define the repeating cycle and season order. Do not sort month labels alphabetically.
Units
Time uses a stated date/time unit and sampling period; the value axis uses the measure's unit. Rates need their own explicit denominator.
Example of the input layout: Long tableA long table: one row per observation, few columns. New data adds rows.CycleSeasonValueAABBC
A long table: one row per observation, few columns. New data adds rows.

Worked example

Data Jan 30,38; Feb 34,40 across two years. Means are 34 and 37. February is higher in both years.

YearMonthValue
2025Jan30
2025Feb34
2026Jan38
2026Feb40
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