maps of dallas

In addition to the nice Sudan maps (previous post), BBC also has an excellent map of Brisbane, Australia showing the extent of the floods and major points of interest. Note that the yellow area is flooded area at the predicted water height and the flood appears to have peaked at slightly below that level.

Santa has begun his difficult journey delivering presents to the good boys and girls of a certain religion. You can follow his progress on Google Maps. Check soon before he takes his well deserved post-holiday break.

So Australia has this big dust storm that turns the sky orange, snarls traffic and causes health hazards and all I can think about is whether or not I can get a good map out of it. Truth is there are few maps to be had. The news sites are more interested in these remarkable pictures.


Seems to me that a map showing the extent of the storm, the damage, traffic tie-ups, anything would be very interesting but no such luck. After spending way too much time searching I finally turned to the trusty old BBC and found some decent maps.



This map shows extent of the storm as well as it's presumed origins at Lake Eyre Basin, a "dusty" area of desert in South Australia.


Most of the satellite images I've seen do not have places labeled, making it difficult to understand the scale of what you're looking at. The above image could be a couple of miles or several hundred miles. Thankfully the BBC came through again and put labels at Sydney and Brisbane, as well as a scale bar. Yes, we're seeing over a thousand miles of dust!

Those of you who are regular readers of the Australian Crop and Livestock Report (my brother is one at least) published by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics know that they have had a horrible drought over the last couple of years. While they have had some rain in November, the map on the left shows how dry things have been this Spring (yes it's Spring there and toilets flush the other way). The map on the right shows the effect on the wheat crop. You will probably want to click on them to be able to read anything.

This web page gives you lists of regional words spoken in Australia. If you click on "Map Search" on the left you can pick a region and see the local words. The "Words A-Z" gives you the full list of words. You kill your whole day right up to beer o'clock on this page. So don't be a nong-linger, rattle your dags and get on your treddly so we can go rally jacking arseways foremost. I could yaffle on all day but I've gotta go map some stobie poles and talk to the turd mechanic.

Vwmaps founded by Martin, one of our loyal readers produced this map showing all NPR stations in the USA.

One of Australia's premier summer events is the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race. This race takes place in late December. During the race you can follow the progress of the boats using the Yacht Tracker. This is an interactive map that lets you access a ton of information about each boat by clicking on it, including position, time, crew and photos.



You can also follow the progress of the boats on google earth