Historypin

One of my most recent discoveries is Historypin - essentially, people (including you, if you like) can scan old photos and "pin" them to a Google Map, and also add stories to the photos. Explorers of the map can compare the historical photos with what's there now, and the photos can also be viewed in StreetView. It's still in Beta so a bit temperamental at the moment, but potentially a very interesting and useful resource...

Anyone can explore the map - if you want to add photos and/or stories, you'll need to sign in with your Google account.

Click on the screenshot to link to the site, or have a look at this YouTube video to find out more:

More volcanoes...

Twitter (@geologynews) strikes again - 8 Hot Volcanic Eruptions from Wired Science is a collection of pretty impressive photos of volcanic eruptions including Mt St Helen's. My particular favourite is this satellite image (courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory) of Mt Cleveland, in Alaska...

Saudi Sandstorm

An excellent (though rather scary) set of images from the BBC of "one of the most powerful sandstorms in decades" which hit Riyadh - the Saudi Arabian capital - on Monday.

And more snow...

Actually, not more snow in our neck of the woods, just very cold so that the snow we had yesterday and last night was nicely frozen and dangerous... It looked very pretty though:


Lots and lots of stories, videos, photos, etc. on the BBC website, and a nice set of photos by Twitter users on Flickr (including mine from Smalley Dam yesterday)...

I particularly like this though...

Snow...

You will probably have noticed the weather forecasts over the weekend, with Met Office warnings for "heavy snow", and, depending where in the country you are, you might also have noticed some snow...

The East Midlands was meant to be one of the worst hit areas... There was nothing, however, til the middle of this afternoon - then a sudden flurry that lasted all of five minutes. I was going to go out and video it but on opening the front door, I changed my mind. Instead, here's the view from the bedroom window:


Snow in Smalley... from victoria ellis on Vimeo.


All that's left now is a fine scattering, nicely frozen and slippy ready to cause mayhem in the morning...

You will also, most likely, have heard of Twitter in the news of late. Like many other people, I didn't "get it" at first, but it's grown on me and I've discovered lots of interesting things - especially, though not exclusively, about ICT in education... Anyway, across the "TwitterVerse", people are "tweeting" snow reports, which are being incorporated into this Google Maps mashup:
I suspect that it says more about the locations of Twitter users who are still up and about than it does about where it's snowing most, but either way, it's interesting from a geographical point-of-view.

Is it snowing where you are?

Wet West Yorkshire...

We might have had a lot of rain in Derbyshire, but West Yorkshire was officially the wettest county today... My dad's just sent me these photographs of the River Aire (just across the road from my old school!)

This picture shows a different view of the same bridge (from Yorksview) on a slightly calmer and drier day...

There's lots of coverage of the floods on the BBC website, and some interesting maps tracking the downpours.

Ooh - and this is post 200 since Geogtastic began on 11th December 2006! Thank you to our 8000+ visitors, and to all those people who point out things for me to write about on a regular basis! Here's to the next 200...

Cloud Photo Competition

The closing date for the Cloud Competition has been extended... You now have until the end of school on Monday 18th June to get your photos of clouds (interesting shapes, colours, textures, patterns, etc.) in, either by email to geogtastic@yahoo.co.uk or on a CD or memory stick to me in Hums. The competition is open to all SHS students, parents and staff, and the only rule is that the photo must be your own...

Keep checking back as well - details of the exciting Geogtastic Summer Postcard Competition coming soon!

Fab cloud picture!!

Just spotted this fab cloud picture taken by soarvalleygeography on Flickr...

And don't forget... get out there with your camera (in between visiting bookshops) and take some cloud pics of your own to enter into the Geogtastic Cloud Photo Competition!! (Scroll down for details...)

Grapheety!

Another excellent site pointed out by a "virtual colleague"...

Grapheety is a site which allows you to add tags with photos, stories, interesting info, etc. about a particular place...

And as the only place tagged in our area is Nottingham Forest Football Club, it's high time we got all signed up and started putting some interesting stuff on there!!

Click on the picture to link to the site... Sign up, and get some interesting East Midlands stuff posted!

Photo Competition!

Thank you for all the excellent entries to the photo competition - and apologies for taking so long to announce the winner.... well done Josh, 8NSq, who took this fab photo of Carr Naze Point near Filey, on the Yorkshire Coast.

With half-term fast approaching, it's also time for the new competition... This time, we'd like your CLOUDS photos! For some inspiration, check out the Cloud Appreciation Society website... The closing date is Friday 15th June, the competition is open to all SHS students, staff and parents, and entries can be emailed, or brought in on a CD or memory stick...

Get snapping!!

And while you're out with your camera, why not take some pictures to send to Geograph or try some GeoSquishing?!

Oh no!!

Yet another excellent distraction from working/cleaning...

Flickrvision is a world map that updates every second to show you the latest photos that have been added to Flickr, and where in the world they were taken! Hours of fun...

GeoJuice!

Another great spot from GeoBlogs - GeoJuice is a new site with loads of superb geographical photos...

I am rather liking the "Random Image" feature... One of them is below... Where is it and what does it show??