[at-l] A.T. Snowfall Maps now online

[charles at uswnet.com (Charles Copeland)]

Weathercarrot,

Very, very, very impressive.  I love looking at maps and yours are great.
There is definitely an artistic side to these also that made following the
snowfall up the AT (I live in Georgia) a very vivid and colorful experience!

Thanks for doing this!

Charles


----- Original Message -----
From: "The Weathercarrot" <weathercarrot@hotmail.com>
To: <at-l@mailman.backcountry.net>; <pct-l@mailman.backcountry.net>
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2003 4:07 PM
Subject: [at-l] A.T. Snowfall Maps now online


Hi -

I just wanted to let you all know that my Appalachian Trail mapping project
of average annual snowfall is finally nearing completion, and is now ready
for viewing on the internet. Please feel free to check it out. This is a
project I started planning and researching more than ten years ago, and have
spent the last two and a half years producing. Originally intended as
something I just wanted to create for myself, the general quality has risen
to a level that  has made me want to make it available for anyone to see.
Even for those not especially interested in the depiction of snowfall along
the trail, these maps have also appealed to people with interests in art,
physical geography, climate/weather, Appalachian geography, the A.T. in
general, and to those who are just into maps.

The front page of the site takes some time to load - some patience may be
required. We decided to try out image titles instead of text because it
looks so much better, but it has it's time-consuming down side. The good
part is that once it's on it can stay there because everything else opens in
a new window. If there is enough negative feedback about load time, we may
switch it to text.

Regarding the site content - there are also some background items, including
a detailed description and history of the project, "behind the scenes"
photos, a full list of data sources, including links to the associated web
sites, and a page for selected trail and climate/weather related links.

Every map on the site appears in two formats. The first one you get to is
the screen size version. This gives you a good overview of the whole map.
You can then click on the link below that to see a zoomed in, larger
version, which will allow you to clearly see every small detail of the map.
There had been some ideas previously to have it more interactive, with
extensive zoom-in and zoom-out capabilities, but I think this is simpler and
very effective.

Internet Explorer users:  some things here to keep in mind - The large
versions of the maps, as well as the enlarged pictures in "Project Photos"
are often reduced to screen size by the browser after loading. To see the
correct size, you then have to hold the curser over the image, find the
little orange and blue icon (lower right corner) and click on it. Several
people who saw the test version of the site were not aware of this feature
and did not see the correct size images until they were told of it
afterwards. So it may not be quite that obvious. Additionally, the two map
versions (which will be in their own windows) are best seen in the full
screen setting (F11). Finally, due to the selection of font and size for the
text portions of the site, it may be best to set the "text size" setting to
smallest.

If you like what you see and you have your own web site, you are definately
invited to include a link to this site on yours. If you do that, please let
me know (just so I can have an idea of where this all goes). In addition,
everyone is encouraged to share these with others, to copy and save the
images, send them elsewhere, or just point people in this direction. This is
something that I want to share with others for free and have no intention to
sell it or use it for any other commercial-type purposes. I'm hoping they
will soon be available in a higher resolution form, which would make a
printed version higher in quality. This form would exist either through an
FTP site (which would then be downloaded) and/or on CD. In both cases it
would still be free, and I can only see the possibility of money changing
hands in a postage/cost of blank CD situation. Regarding the whole copyright
issue, I would just ask that if these maps are used elsewhere, please
mention where they came from.

So, here is the link to the A.T. snowmaps site:

http://friends.backcountry.net/snowmaps

I hope you will enjoy this. For me it's definately been quite an experience
to create. I look foreward to hearing from you. Thanks,

The Weathercarrot

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