Map Watch News

Garmin has solved the problem of GPS auto navigation where GPS signals are intermittent - such as in downtown areas or mountains where line-of-sight connection to key satellites is lost. In the Garmin StreetPilot 2660, when the signal is lost a dead reckoning system (connected to the auto speedometer and back-up lights) takes over to keep you on track. The Garmin Streetpilot 2660 GPS also features a high-resolution color touchscreen with voice-prompted turn-by-turn navigation. A powerful processor facilitates rapid route calculation and screen refresh.
Learn more about the Garmin StreetPilot 2660

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has developed an online system that will allow you to view maps of historical hurricane tracks. The system draws upon hurricane data from the past 150 years and allows you to querry storms by storm name, zip code, place name, latitude/longitude.


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Visit the NOAA website and creat a Hurricane Track Map

The U.S. Geological Survey's (USGS) EROS Data Center will begin distributing historical aerial photography in digital format on September 3, 2004. The photos come from an archive of over 8,000,000 frames acquired between the 1930's and 1970's and used to produce 1:24,000 scale USGS topographic quadrangle maps. After this release USGS will no longer distribute these photos in hard-copy format.

Sample images can be seen at USGS Historical Aerial Photos Sample Page.

To receive USGS news releases go to USGS News Release Sign-Up Page

Here's a great article by Randy Templeton that was published in Iowa Game & Fish Magazine. It includes several tips on how topo maps and aerial photos can increase your deer hunting enjoyment and success.

Your Guide to Pre-Season Scouting for Iowa Deer

Syracuse University Press has published "The Adirondack Atlas" by Jerry Jenkins and Andy Keal. The book has hundreds of maps, hundreds of charts and hundreds of photos that illustrate elements of park ecology, geology, development, wildlife and other interesting topics. The maps clearly show how a geographic information system can be used to compile an informative and interesting profile of an area. Jenkins is an expert botanist and ecologist and Keal is a specialist in geographic information systems.

The Adirondack Atlas