Swift XRT a) count rate light curve (0.2–10 keV) and b) effective blackbody temperature evolution of M31N 2008-12a during the 2014 outburst (black). In grey we show the corresponding data of the 2013 outburst (based on HND2014). Time is in days after 2014-10-02.69 UT (see Sect. 3.1) for the 2014 data. The error bars in time represent either a) the duration of the observation or b) the time between sets of observations (see Sect. 3.2). Panel a) triangles indicate upper limits. Panel b) sets of observations with similar spectra have been fitted simultaneously assuming a fixed N_H = 1.4×10²¹ cm^-2.