NORAD tracks Santa

The countdown to Santa's flight has begun and with the Christmas holiday just a few days away I wanted to make sure to pass along the NORAD Santa information which will be tracking Santa Claus as he delivers presents on Christmas Eve, for those of you with little ones make sure to show them, as an incentive for why they should get to bed on Christmas Eve.

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html

In addition to the website resource for tracking Santa's progress. NORAD will also be placing Santa's path into an updating Google Earth file that can be added directly to the Google Earth to take advantage of the other features of the program.

The story behind how NORAD became the official Santa trackers is quite a good one, taken from the NORAD website is the explanation about how NORAD became the official tracker of Santa Claus:

For more than 50 years, NORAD and its predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) have tracked Santa’s flight.

The tradition began in 1955 after a Colorado Springs-based Sears Roebuck & Co. advertisement for children to call Santa misprinted the telephone number. Instead of reaching Santa, the phone number put kids through to the CONAD Commander-in-Chief’s operations "hotline." The Director of Operations at the time, Colonel Harry Shoup, had his staff check the radar for indications of Santa making his way south from the North Pole. Children who called were given updates on his location, and a tradition was born.

In 1958, the governments of Canada and the United States created a bi-national air defense command for North America called the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as NORAD, which then took on the tradition of tracking Santa.

Since that time, NORAD men, women, family and friends have selflessly volunteered their time to personally respond to phone calls and emails from children all around the world. In addition, we now track Santa using the Internet. Millions of people who want to know Santa’s whereabouts now visit the NORAD Tracks Santa website.

Finally, media from all over the world rely on NORAD as a trusted source to provide updates on Santa’s journey.

Now you know how the tradition got started, hopefully you enjoy this fun little twist on geospatial technology.

From all of us at CFGIS we hope you have a safe and happy holidays!!!