This map shows monthly average temperatures recorded by approximately 7,280 climate stations around the world since 1900. Our goal was to show the beauty in the diversity of land temperatures, rather than to provide a precise weather map. Read more about our motivation on our blog post.

Temperature measurements are taken at specific geographic locations. We used a Voronoi tessellation to turn these points into colored regions on the map. This method is not always precise, but gives a fairly good approximation, especially in areas where weather stations are close to each other.

Monthly mean temperature, used for NCDC climate monitoring activities, including calculation of global land surface temperature anomalies and trends. NOAA NCDC - GHCN Monthly