Federal Land Ownership

I found this basemap online while searching for different maps. This map, while a bit outdated, shows how much land that the federal governement owned in the late 1990s. On the map, we see that the West has more land under federal ownership than the Midwest or the East. This map will make one wonder why the Government owns so much land in the West... while very little east of the Rockies.

This image shows the current drought situation in the state of Virginia by county. I chose this image not only because it shows the drought in our home state, but it also shows the information countywide. Therefore, you can see exactly which county has the most extreme drought and needs the rain the most -- and which county does not. Its an intriguing map that is updated weekly by the US Drought Monitor, which is an offshoot of NOAA.

This image was found at: http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/DM_state.htm?VA,SE

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/data/anomnight.9.20.2007.gif

This is an interesting map not only because it shows the SST anamolies in degrees celsius, it is also a pretty good map because it does not distort much. It maintains distance and shape, but appears to distort on size though since the map must be large for all to see. It is a map to help tell the difference between an El Nino and a La Nina, and is very important because it can possible tell the future weather around the world!

Five Websites

http://geog310.blogspot.com
http://geog.gmu.edu/

I picked the site www.nhc.noaa.gov/ because it deals with the weather, which is my favorite hobby. It has alot of information about hurricanes, the history of past hurricanes, and has maps showing where hurricanes are now in the present, where they may go in the future, and where they went in the past.

I picked the site https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ because it is a good governmental site. Its also a site that I use since I am very familiar with countries around the world. It also gives good updates and information about the conditions in each country and island in the world, as well as shows exactly where the country/island is located on maps. It also self-updates once in a while and has new information about the country itself (GDP, transportation, religion)... so its an all-around good website for geography.

I picked the site http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/ because it is a site I used quite often for model runs. Since I am an avid weather fanatic, I use it often to predict or try to figure out future weather patterns... or future tracks of storms (hurricanes/snowstorms). It also shows a great use of maps and three levels of mapping, which helps in the resolution/format of the maps and the models.