Map Watch News

Google has added road and highway overlays to their satellite images. Just press the "hybrid" button to switch to the satellite / road overlay format.
Zoom into your favorite area at our United States Map page.

Year 2005 might be a record for tropical storms and hurricanes. So far there have been five named storms and two of them have been major hurricanes. Another disturbance has reached tropical storm wind speeds. Tropical Storm Franklin is moving northwestward across Great Abaco Island in the Northwestern Bahamas. From NOAA:

AT 5 AM EDT...0900Z...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM FRANKLIN WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 26.7 NORTH...LONGITUDE 77.3 WEST OR OVER THE NORTHERN PORTION OF GREAT ABACO ISLAND. THIS IS ALSO ABOUT 95 MILES... 150 KM...EAST OF FREEPORT ON GRAND BAHAMA ISLAND.

FRANKLIN IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 12 MPH...19 KM/HR. A GRADUAL TURN TOWARD THE NORTH AND A DECREASE IN FORWARD SPEED ARE EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS. THIS MOTION SHOULD BRING THE CENTER OF FRANKLIN NORTH OF THE NORTHWESTERN BAHAMAS LATER TODAY.

TROPICAL STORM WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT FOR THE NORTHWESTERN BAHAMAS FOR ELEUTHERA... THE ABACOS... AND GRAND BAHAMA ISLAND.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 45 MPH... 75 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. SOME STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS. ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1009 MB...29.80 INCHES.

FRANKLIN MAY PRODUCE RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF 2 TO 4 INCHES OVER THE NORTHERN BAHAMAS DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

More details at NOAA's Franklin Track Map page.

Here's an interesting story about how a quick thinking guy got out of a traffic ticket by using google maps on a weak WiFi connection in a courtroom. Read more at How Google Maps Helps Defeat Traffic Ticket

There's a big discussion of Real-Time GPS Traffic Updates at slashdot.com
Read more at the Real-Time GPS Traffic Updates thread.

Hurricane Emily could be upgraded to a category five hurricane based upon recent windspeed measurements.

"MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 155 MPH...250 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. THIS MAKES EMILY A STRONG CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE ON THE
SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. SOME FLUCTUATIONS IN STRENGTH ARE EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS...AND EMILY COULD BECOME A CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE AT TIMES."

Current landfall is expected to occur on the Yucatan Peninsula early Monday and on the Gulf Coast of Texas and Mexico late Tuesday.
More information at the Hurricane Emily Track Map page.

The Garmin StreetPilot c340 has ground-breaking features for a mobile GPS unit. The first great new feature is text-to-speech processing that tells users the name of the street for their next turn, when to turn, and in what direction. If you miss the turn, the StreetPilot c340 automatically calculates a new route to your destination.

More exciting is real time traffic data in selected cities. There users will be able to see traffic jams as color-coded areas on their on-screen map. To avoid the traffic delay the user simply pushes a button and the GPS calculates a new route. The traffic awareness data is broadcasted in certain major metro areas via FM radio.
Learn more about text to speech and live traffic updates at the Garmin website.

The National Weather Service now has an interactive map that shows the geographic extent of advisories, watches and warnings for across the United States. Shown on the map are areas of: dense fog advisory, flash flood watch, flood watch, heat advisory, severe thunderstorm warning, special weather statement, excessive heat warning, flood statement, gale warning, hurricane warning, wind advisory, flash flood statement, flood warning, marine weather statement and small craft advisory. Not all of these were up to full scale implementation when we visited the site today but it looks like it will be a great resource when finished.
Visit NOAA's site for Weather Watch, Warning and Advisory Maps

Geology.com now has interactive satellite images for seven different areas. These are Google's satellite images posted for free use by visitors to Geology.com. Check out the images for.... Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, South America, and United States.

Tim Klimowicz has created a time sequence animation of Fatalities in the Iraq War. This interesting animation makes a very strong impression upon the viewer. It can be set to show fatalities by country (USA, United Kingdom, Italy, Ukraine, Poland, Spain, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Netherlands, Estonia, Thailand, Kazakhstan, El Salvador, Latvia, Denmark, Hungary. A lot of effort was done to make this map especially correlating all of the dates and geographic locations, then building them into an animated sequence. Read more about the Iraq Fatalities Map at the WorldChanging.com website.

The Coastal Services Center has on online collection of hurricane evacuation maps for Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi. These maps show evacuation zones, storm surge zones and evacuation routes. Shown below is a storm surge map for portions of Escambia County, Mobile County, Jackson County and Baldwin County, Alabama.
Learn more about the Hurricane Evacuation Maps at the NOAA Coastal Services Center website.

We just added access to Google's maps and satellite images to MapWatch.com using their new API license. If you have not tried Google's new service yet just click on the screenshot below and give it a try.


United States Map from Google

National Statistics Online UK has posted a very detailed study of the geographic distribution of different types of cancer. Included in their study are online cancer maps showing the incidence of various types of cancers in men and women. Maps are included for bladder cancer, brain cancer, breast cancer, cancer of the cervix, colorectal cancer, Hodgkin's disease, kidney cancer, cancer of the larynx, leukemia, cancer of the lip, mouth and pharynx, lung cancer, melamoma, multiple myeloma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, oesophagus, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, stomach cancer, testicular cancer and cancer of the uterus.
Visit the National Statistics Online UK website to see all of their Cancer Maps

Tropical Storm Dennis has been upgraded to a hurricane based upon recent windspeed measurements.

"SHORTLY BEFORE 527 PM EDT...RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT MEASURED A FLIGHT-LEVEL WIND OF 79 KT IN THE NORTHEAST QUADRANT ON THEIR OUTBOUND LEG...WHICH EQUATES TO A SURFACE WIND OF ABOUT 71 KT. A CENTRAL PRESSURE OF 985 MB WAS ALSO MEASURED. BASED ON THIS INFORMATION...DENNIS IS BEING UPGRADED TO A HURRICANE AND A SPECIAL ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED AT 6 PM EDT."

Current landfall is expected to occur on the Gulf Coast portions of Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle.
More information at the Hurricane Dennis Track Map page.

Tropical Storm Dennis is on a track for a possible landfall in Louisiana on Saturday. The National Hurricane Center has posted public advisories, strike probabilility maps, wind speed maps, wind charts, and potential hurricane track maps for tropical storm Dennis.

The track map below shows the coastal areas under a hurricane warning (red), hurricane watch (pink) and tropical storm warning (blue). The orange circle indicates the current position of the center of the tropical cyclone. The black line and dots show the National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast track of the center at the times indicated. The letter inside the dot indicates the NHC's forecast intensity for that time.


See the map above in more detail at NHC's Tropical Storm Dennis Tracking page.

The European Space Agency is using satellites to collect and map ground radiance levels across Europe. This data has great value, not only to solar power consultants but it also has use in home construction, development planning, tourisim and health care. Their website demonstrates some of their data with animated sunshine maps that show how solar radience changes with each month of the year.
Check out the sunshine maps at the ESO website.

I finally saw a website selling GPS tracking for dogs. A small transmitting unit that slips onto your dog's collar. Looks like it would work well for a large dog as it is 80 grams and 108x44x23 mm in size. You can find the last transmitted location of the unit (and hopefully your dog) via the internet, SMS or telephone. It might work well for tracking your kids too - if you can get them to wear it and leave it on. Learn more about GPS Tracking for Dogs at the Locatis website. It will be available in Switzerland in August. (See our Uses of GPS page for more ideas on how GPS can be used.)