Obviously, snowfall is limited in its southernmost reaches because it needs to be cold enough to snow, so the effects are strongest in the higher and colder elevations of the West. To the north, however, there is a reduction in snowfall (brown shading), especially around the Great Lakes, interior New England, the northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest, extending through far western Canada, and over most of Alaska. In fact, El Niño appears to be the great snowfall suppressor over most of North America.
The above map shows the change in snowfall during all El Niño years; additional maps tease out other details (such as the difference in moderate-to-strong El Niños). [CNN]
Rex Tholomeus Portolan Chart, ca. 1360. Vellum, 1141 × 686 mm. Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps.
The Los Angeles Times has the story of a map that turned out to be far older and more valuable than anyone expected. Ann and Gordon Getty paid £56,600 for a portolan chart in 1993, restored it and put it on display in their home. After Ann died in 2020, Alex Clausen of Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps paid $239,000 for it at the estate sale. The map was dated to 1500-1525, but Clausen suspected it was older and therefore even more valuable. Hundreds of hours of research and lab tests determined a new date: circa 1360, making it the oldest portolan chart in the U.S. and the fourth oldest portolan chart known overall. As for how much more valuable, Ruderman thinks it’s worth a lot more than $239,000: they’re listing it for $7.5 million. They’ve named it the Rex Tholomeus Portolan Chart, after the single human figure appearing on the map, and you can see the listing and read the 49-page catalogue (PDF).
The animation shows sea surface height anomalies around the world: Red and orange indicate ocean heights that were higher than the global mean sea surface height, while blue represents heights lower than the mean. Sea level differences can highlight ocean currents, like the Gulf Stream coming off the U.S. East Coast or the Kuroshio current off the east coast of Japan. Sea surface height can also indicate regions of relatively warmer water—like the eastern part of the equatorial Pacific Ocean during an El Niño—because water expands as it warms.
Micah Vander Lugt’s Esri-powered 3D map of Middle-earth is a departure from the usual fantasy-style map in that it uses an elevation layer. It’s a fascinating perspective, and lots of fun to play with. Though not without quibbles: for example, the labels and 3D rendering don’t always agree with each other, and I’m having a hard time imagining either Minas Tirith or Caras Galadhon as 25-30 km across. [Maps Mania]
It’s fun to play with those things that you’re not supposed to do! But, these are also same kinds of choices that might be made by someone who’s new to our community, and who isn’t as experienced. I’ve seen plenty of students who start out their careers by producing work that is very similar to the material that my colleagues produced when they were prompted to make “a bad map.”
Imagine, then, being one of those novices and seeing someone out there make something in the same style as you, and then see people laugh at it. Might you learn a useful lesson about design? Maybe. But there’s a kinder and more effective way to teach the next generation, isn’t there? […]
It’s no secret that I think our community has had a history of toxic critique and gatekeeping. I’ve written about it here, and talked about it at NACIS. This year, when prompted to make “a bad map,” I invite you to think of “bad” in more ways than just “what a beginner would make.”
GPS Jam, created by John Wiseman, is an online map of GPS interference, updated daily, based on GPS accuracy information reported by aircraft. It’s not necessarily a map of where GPS is being deliberately jammed, but when you look and see that the hotspots are the eastern Mediterranean, western Russia and the Baltics, well. Active war zones (e.g. Ukraine) are blank: this map is based on civilian aircraft data and those are no-go areas.
Two upcoming solar eclipses in North America—the annular eclipse on October 14, and the total eclipse on April 8, 2024—are the subject of numerous eclipse maps that track the path of totality and its duration along that path.
The Eclipse Company has separate maps for this month’s annular eclipse and next April’s total eclipse: these maps include data for locations along the path, including time, duration, the sun’s altitude and chance of clouds based on historical weather data. [PetaPixel]
The last time I went looking for eclipse maps, back in 2017, there was a website called GreatAmericanEclipse.com, which was the most recent of the websites showcasing the eclipse maps of Michael Zeiler. It’s still very much a going concern, with maps covering North America, individual U.S. states, and detailed maps of the path itself. These are static maps rather than the above interactive maps, but there are a lot of them, and not just for this month’s annular and next year’s total eclipse: there’s a fair bit of historical (and future!) eclipse maps there too.
This blog post from independent roleplaying games creator Periapt Games looks at the phenomenon of what’s called “pseudo-anachronistic elements” in fantasy fiction (and fantasy roleplaying games): technologies that have no business existing in the era being portrayed. Of course maps are mentioned, and at length—otherwise why would I mention it here? “Despite being ubiquitous in the modern day, reading a top-down map or even understanding what a map means is a learned skill, and not trivially so. Don’t expect pre-industrial people to be able to purchase a map, read one, or know what one is.” This is precisely what I was trying to say in my 2019 Tor.com article, “Fantasy Maps Don’t Belong in the Hands of Fantasy Characters”; it’s gratifying to see someone else making the same argument.
Daniel Huffman’s map projection trading cards are making a comeback. “While my colleagues and I did our best to let everyone know about these cards, some people inevitably missed out during the first print run. I’ve had many people contact me asking and hoping to get their hands on a pack or two. So, I am bringing them back for one final print runvia Kickstarter,” writes Huffman. “I hope you’ll share this widely, so that we don’t miss anyone this time around, as this is almost certainly the last time these cards will be printed.”
As the CBC’s evening news program The National reports, flood maps can be incredibly hard to find, with even municipal maps requiring an NDA to view in some cases. Now this story focuses on Halifax, Nova Scotia in the wake of flash flooding this summer; the situation elsewhere in Canada may be quite different (Quebec’s flood maps, for example, are available online, though only in French).
The family of a man who died after driving off a collapsed bridge is suing Google; they allege that despite multiple reports from users, Google Maps continued to mark the bridge in North Carolina, which partially collapsed in 2013, as passable, directing him and other drivers across it. The family is also suing local companies for failing to maintain the bridge or put up barricades and hazard warnings.
Bernard Sleigh, “An anciente mappe of Fairyland: newly discovered and set forth,” ca. 1917. Map illustration, 147 × 39 cm. Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library.
Matthew Edney has a post on Bernard Sleigh’s Anciente Mappe of Fairyland, about which we have seen much already; Edney’s look is deeper and more analytical. “Of special interest to me is how, despite his overtly anti-modernist subject matter and style, Sleigh nonetheless gave structure and system to his fictive panorama by giving it the trappings of normative maps and of realistic imagery more generally.”
The Wall Street Journal provides some background to the map that got the Barbie movie into trouble in Vietnam, and the steps movie studios are increasingly taken to ensure that on-screen cartography doesn’t run afoul of other countries’ sensitivities. How to avoid a repeat of the Barbie controversy? “One proposal executives have discussed: having an employee inside the clearance department review every map featured on screen for potential problems or offenses. That’s a tough proposition, one employee noted, since the ‘Barbie’ map wasn’t processed by the Los Angeles team as a normal map at all.” (Link may be paywalled; see also the Apple News+ link—which granted is also paywalled.)
