NASA MODIS Image: Russia ablaze

It has been an unusually hot summer in parts of Russia.

This map released by NASA shows how temperatures across Asia deviated from their expected values in the period from 20 July to 27 July this year.

It is derived from data collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Terra satellite, compared with average temperatures in the region between 2000 and 2008.

Exceptionally high temperatures which have led to wildfires around Moscow can be seen marked in red and brown.

At the same time, swathes of northern Russia and eastern Kazakhstan were significantly cooler than normal (shown in blue).

(Image: NASA)