Thermal time is adopted to research the relationship of plant growth with climate, etc. A thermal time linear regression model for studying the changes of aroma components in cigarettes was developed based on the effects of different storage temperatures (from -5 to 50 °C). The results of ANOVA analysis and discriminant analysis showed that 20-30 °C was the initial temperature range wherein the total contents of volatile components in cigarette began to decrease. The methods were applied to analyze the changes of volatile organic compounds in cigarettes of three brands stored in two cities for two years. The results indicated that higher temperature could accelerate the decrease of aroma compounds and the quality of the same brand samples stored in different environments changed differently. Thermal time model is an effective method to discriminate the seasonal change rules of cigarette quality during storage.