Northern Hemisphere mild temperatures, December 2006. The colours represent the differences between the average land surface temperature in December 2006 and the average December temperatures between 2000-2005. The scale runs from dark red, indicating surface temperatures 10 degrees Celsius higher than the December average, to dark blue, being 10 degrees cooler. Much of Eurasia and North America was much warmer than usual. On the other side of the world, the band of dark red in southeastern Australia reveals the higher than usual summer temperatures that contributed to the serious drought in the region. Image created from data from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite.