weathermole.com WeatherMole combines Google Maps with real-time information from the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to provide forecasts for anywhere in the continental U.S. and Hawaii. Click on any point on the map – or type a city or ZIP code – and NOAA’s five-day forecast pops up below the map. The site was designed by Julien Chastang, a software engineer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
familywatchdog.us For parents who want to protect their children from sexual predators, this online sex-offender registry may prove valuable. (For champions of privacy, not so much.) Type in your address and get a map that shows all the registered sex offenders in your neighborhood, the type of offense and date of conviction. The site uses Google Maps’ hybrid satellite photos overlaid with street names to make it easier to recognize homes. Click on highlighted points on the map to bring up a profile of the offender who lives there and the type of crime committed. The site also lists sex offenders in the area who recently have moved.
mindpicnic.com/maps-quiz For those who were paying attention in class, the Google Maps Quiz is a good test of how well you know your geography. It’s a simple game: Look at a satellite image of a random location on the planet – the area you’re looking at is roughly the size of Colorado – and try to figure out where on Earth it is. To guess, click a point on the adjacent world map. If your guess is within 100 miles, you must work for National Geographic. Miss by 10,000 miles, and maybe you should go back to the eighth grade.
