Google Maps And Severe Weather

By now I hope you’ve seen Google’s map application. To me, it’s better than all the others for maps and directions.

Part of what makes Google’s mapping cool is Ajax coding, something I’m about to talk about, though I really don’t understand it. It’s a method which allows the Google page to appear ‘live’. You can drag a map and scroll it across the page as if it lived on your PC and not Google’s servers.

Like I said, it’s really cool.

Part of the ‘fun’ of applications like this is the ability to ‘hack’ them. I’m not talking about stealing credit card numbers. ‘Hack’ here is used in its purest geek sense of modifying and extending someone else’s work.

A perfect example is Storm Report Map. This online application takes the daily severe weather reports from the Storm Prediction Center and navigates them on Google’s maps.

This is very impressive stuff. There’s gotta be more to come!