NOAA’s hurricane forecasts will continue to be able to use data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). Michael Lowry reports that in a last-minute reversal, the U.S. Department of Defense will continue to allow NOAA to have access to that data for the remainder of the satellites’ lifespan (about a year or two). NOAA and NASA had been told that they’d lose access to the data today: see previous entry. In an earlier post Lowry challenged the notion that a viable substitute could be found for the DMSP’s Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS) data, the loss of which he described as “significant and devastating” to hurricane forecasting. [Wonkette]
Month: July 2025
Review: Telling Stories with Maps
Fundamentally, Allen Carroll’s Telling Stories with Maps: Lessons from a Lifetime of Creating Place-Based Narratives is a book about using Esri’s ArcGIS StoryMaps service for creating digital narratives with maps. It’s of little use to anyone not using StoryMaps, but it’s not quite a user manual either. It presents the theory and practice of map-based storytelling, as applicable to the StoryMaps user base, with examples from Carroll’s long career, most notably at the National Geographic Society from 1983 to 2010, and then at Esri, where he went on to found their StoryMaps platform.
Carroll’s transition from National Geographic to Esri—a good chunk of Telling Stories with Maps serves as a memoir of Carroll’s working life—parallels a transition from analog to digital storytelling, and despite differences in medium, Carroll demonstrates that map-based narratives cover both the National Geographic maps (think the back sides of the map inserts) and interactive maps.
As StoryMaps emerged, one tool at a time, it presented a challenge: as Carroll notes, its users were GIS professionals who were not necessarily equipped to be storytellers—to be able to craft a narrative that held the attention of the reader. Telling Stories with Maps is an attempt to address that knowledge gap, with a bit of theory of narrative and a boatload of real-world examples (collected online here, because in-book screenshots can only do so much). As such it’s a book about what StoryMaps is for—what you can do with it, the best way to use it—rather than a step-by-step instruction manual.
I received an electronic review copy from the publisher.
Telling Stories with Maps
by Allen Carroll
Esri, 10 Jun 2025
Amazon (Canada, UK), Bookshop
Re-Purposing Maps: The Art of Mark M. Garrett
Responding to my post about Joanathan Bessaci’s map cutout art, Fred DeJarlais wrote to point out that the California Map Society’s journal, Calafia, featured another artist using a similar technique, Mark M. Garrett, in its Fall 2022 issue. It’s a good piece in which Garrett goes into detail about his inspiration and method, but since Calafia’s archives are member-only, I’ll point you to Garrett’s website, which is full of examples of his work, and where he explains his work thusly:
At some point I began to fold paper and ‘draw’ with scissors . . . particularly re-purposing maps or anatomy texts culled from flea markets or estate sales. I often incorporate opaque and transparent watercolor as an extension of the color palette printed on the charts. I find comfort in the creative and obssesive nature of these collages as each reveals a unique process and persona over time. New worlds emerge in oddly emotional interpretations of once familiar places. There’s an anticipation as they shift and evolve from factually printed documents to new and potentially uncertain places of possibility. The technique of hand-cutting maps and painting in the gaps emerged for me as a metaphor of holding the world even as its outlines shift radically and unpredictably.
Sharpiegate Investigators Placed on Leave
CNN reports that two NOAA officials who led the internal “Sharpiegate” inquiry—which found that NOAA leadership violated its ethical standards and scientific integrity policy when they backed Trump’s Sharpie-adjusted hurricane forecast map—were placed on administrative leave on Thursday. In a complete coincidence, one of the officials they found in violation, then-acting NOAA administrator Neil Jacobs, has been nominated to become Trump’s new NOAA administrator, with a committee vote on his nomination coming next week.
Previously: Inside NOAA During Trump’s Sharpie Mapmaking Period.
Ordnance Survey Asked to Change Route of Historic Path Through Dartmoor
Nick Pannell wants the Ordnance Survey to change the route of the Abbot’s Way path through Dartmoor National Park in Devon, England. Pannell says his own research shows that medieval monks took a more northerly route between Buckfast and Tavistock, and that the path shown on OS maps since 1886 is wrong. The OS doesn’t dispute Pannell’s research, but says that the current route existed 130 years before the initial survey, and there are no currently existing paths along Pannell’s preferred route. This seems to be a case of the prescriptive vs. the descriptive: Pannell shows where the path used to be or ought to have been, the OS shows the current reality on the ground. Nor can OS change the map unless, per the article, Historic England changes the official route: it’s not OS’s call to make.
Vector Tiles Arrive on OpenStreetMap
Vector tiles have been deployed on OpenStreetMap (see the “Shortbread” layer in the map layers menu). This technical upgrade was first announced last year; it’ll provide, they say, “a visual layer that is sharper and quicker, based on an entirely new backend.”
The World Turned Upside Down and Other Globes: A Roundup
Mark Wallinger’s World Turned Upside Down, a 13-foot globe on the LSE campus with the South Pole on top, generated controversy (and vandalism) after its unveiling in 2019 for how it handled contested borders: it shows Lhasa as a capital, Taiwan as a separate country, and omitted Palestine. I mean, it’s on a university campus: controversy about such things was inevitable. Via Mappery; more at Atlas Obscura and Brilliant Maps.
Mappery also points to a 19th-century globular clock that shows the sun’s position at noon on the globe, which I find awfully intriguing, which is to say I want one.
The Library of Congress is changing how it stores its rare globes, replacing acrylic vitrines (heavy, bulky, and potentially off-gassing compounds that put the globes at risk) with archival cardboard cases, which are less sexy but more practical—we’re talking about storage, not display. I’m actually surprised that rare globes had essentially been stored in display cases.
Wild World, the Jigsaw Puzzle
I missed that a jigsaw puzzle version of Anton Thomas’s Wild World (previously) was released in January. The puzzle has 1,500 pieces and measures 39×20 inches when completed. Anton says that if you’re in the U.S. or Canada it’s best to order from the publisher’s website; it’s also listed on Amazon.
Large Wool Map of Ireland Seeks New Home
The Journal: “A 12ft by 11ft wool map of Ireland, which took four years of knitting and crocheting to complete, is in search of a new home to go on public display.”
History of Cartography Project’s Fifth Volume Goes to Press
The History of Cartography Project’s fifth and final volume, Cartography in the Nineteenth Century, has finally gone to press, though the massive book will take two years to work its way through the production pipeline. It’s scheduled for publication in 2027.
(All previous volumes are available as free downloads in PDF format. So will volume five, once it’s been out for a couple of years.)
Previously: History of Cartography Project’s Fourth Volume Now Available Online; Forty Years of the History of Cartography Project; The History of Cartography’s Fourth Volume, Now (Almost) Out; History of Cartography Project Updates; History of Cartography Project’s Sixth Volume Now Available Online; History of Cartography Project’s Sixth Volume Now Out.
Apple Maps Roundup
9to5Mac notes two features coming to Apple Maps as of iOS 26 this fall: natural language search and commute notifications.
Meanwhile, Apple Maps briefly failed to treat Ontario’s Highway 407 as a toll road earlier this month, in what was probably an updating error. (The 407 is a fairly expensive toll freeway, but it’s split between privately and provincially owned sections; the province is removing tolls on its section, but Apple apparently applied that change to the whole route.)
A new contact page replaces the old contact, FAQ, link submission and review guidelines pages. Simpler and less repetitive. And instead of a contact form, there’s just an email address. So much spam was coming through the contact forms that all form results got sent to the spam folder: I’ve been missing legitimate messages. So we’ll try this instead.
The Map Cutout Art of Joanathan Bessaci
The art of Joanathan Bessaci includes maps cut out and layered to form images.
I presently work with old Michelin maps dated from roughly 1920 to 1970. I use old French Michelin maps because I like their color and texture but also because for me, they symbolize the roads that various family members have taken to get to France. My maternal grandmother emigrated to France from Vietnam and my paternal grandfather emigrated to France from Kabylia (Northern Algeria). I myself moved to Washington D.C. from Paris in August, 2016.
I was also drawn to old French Michelin maps because I have been surrounded by objects like them since I was a child. Both my father and grandfather have stands in Lyon’s largest flea market and I spent long hours there as a child and adolescent. Many of the maps that I use come from Lyon’s flea markets and others throughout France.
My work presently consists of cutting portraits and other images into several maps. I chose my maps very carefully and try to integrate their geography, including lakes, rivers, oceans, roads, highways, parks and city centers into my images to highlight certain visual elements. Each of my pieces is made up of multiple maps which I cut out and layer on top of each other in between pieces of glass to create depth and texture.
It’s astonishingly well done. Bessaci’s maps often form images of animals, or people in motion; motorways intersect at locations on the body that evoke a circulatory system. The effect is even more dramatic in his anatomical works, where the map layers draw out hidden bones.
Here’s a time-lapse video of Bessaci creating one of his works:
An exhibition of Bessaci’s work, Mapping the Soul, wrapped up last week at the Zenith Gallery in Washington, D.C. It can also be seen at Galerie Jamault in Paris.
Mapping the Best Places to See the Aurora Borealis
Harry Kuril built a computer model to identify the places with a best chance to catch a glimpse of the aurora borealis during a short visit, assigning scores based on aurora intensity, cloud cover and light pollution data. The above map is the result. [Maps.com]
Maps on Vinyl in the Guardian
Damien Saunder’s book about maps on record covers, Maps on Vinyl, got a writeup in the Guardian last week.
Some designs address global social or environmental issues. Others map the mind, imaginary places, feelings, worldviews—or, in the case of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno’s The Equatorial Stars, deep space.
Among Saunder’s personal favourites is a sleeve from the long-gone Iowa alt rock band House of Large Sizes, showing a cake whose icing is decorated with a map, with a chunk missing. “It’s a commentary on how we’re consuming the world piece by piece, almost without noticing,” says Saunder.
Another favourite cover comes from Belgian punk band Hetze: an illustration of a globe dangling by a thread from the forefinger of an elegant, long-nailed hand, by tattoo artist Florence Roman.
Previously: Maps on Vinyl.