Maine's Fire Tower Panorama Maps

The State of Maine's Forest Service commissioned a series of 360-degree maps centered on mountaintop fire towers throughout the state. They are available from the digitalMaine repository.

For example here is Mt Ararat in the town of Topsham, near the coast.

Here is some detail - the fire tower is marked by the black dot in the center.

Another example from near the Quebec border  - Green Mountain.

Here you can see the title block, map and panoramic details along the rim of each map.

More urban locations like Mt Ararat will show details like oil tanks and standpipes.

There's also an interactive map so you can search for your favorite mountain.

One more example, just because I am enjoying looking at these!

SUPER IMPORTANT ADDENDUM: I noticed that the Stockholm Mountain map includes some major details about property owners and their land.

Mapping Worldwide effects of COVID-19

COVID-19 Dashboard is a concerted effort between the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It combines the resources of these three agencies to visualize the environmental and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Move around the map to see indicators color coded by relationship to normal baseline data. Green is better, blue is similar and red is worse.

For example, the air quality in many cities including New Delhi has gotten better with the decreased level of economic activity. Click on a point to reveal a detailed chart showing the changes in the selected factor.

Other indicators include water quality.

Here you can use a slider to compare conditions in the Venice Lagoon between January and June.

Economic activity indicators include shipping and agriculture. This graph shows how harvests have slowed in the Castille and Leon region of Spain due to the decreased mobility of seasonal workers.

You can also see night light images of various cities and compare different months.

More to see here

Vacation Post 2020

I am on vacation this week so I don't really have anything except this important puzzle I'm working on.

Here it is in situ.

The dog is whining so I better take him down to the water. See you next week!

Soviet Map Symbols

National Geographic shows some great 1968 posters from the Soviet Union's United States mapping project. They beautifully illustrate how cartographic symbols translate to their real world features. For example there are numerous bridge types shown with their symbols below. Because this is copyright material, the only way I can legally show this is through Twitter - though that hasn't stopped others from posting these.

Secret Soviet Posters Demystify Map Symbols https://t.co/UueIoRIWGu via @NatGeo

— 🌏Map of the Week (@MapOfTheWeek) July 8, 2020

If you view their article's slide show you can see how different types of highways, railroads, power plants and buildings are represented.

Images from The Red Atlas: How the Soviet Union Secretly Mapped America, by John Davies and Alexander J. Kent, published by the University of Chicago Press

Sea Level Rise-Coming to a City Near You

Conspiracy of Cartographers has a series of maps showing what will be underwater in various cities after 215 feet (66 meters) of sea level rise. Keep in mind that this is "end point" sea level rise and not anything we would see in our lifetimes. A recent page highlights new maps of Philadelphia,

and Washington, DC.

Both maps show similar patterns with the central cities completely flooded and the land being mostly peninsulas in the hilly north and western suburbs. There are also some nice puns.

In Philadelphia, Hunting Park becomes Fishing Park, University City becomes Irreversibly Pity, Wayne Junction, Drain Junction, and Northern Liberties is now Northern Fisheries.

Other maps have been done for cities in the U.S., Australia and England as well as a few larger regions. Here are Cascadia,

 The Palm Springs-Coachella area of California,

an almost completely waterlogged Brisbane,

and Los Angeles, featuring one of my favorite puns- the Ex-LAX airport.