NORAD Santa Tracker 2013 Online: where is santa right now?

NORAD Santa Tracker is on the alert

Santa Claus is on the move again and NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, is geared up to keep track of where the jolly old man is in his travels.

NORAD has been tracking Santa’s Christmas Eve travels since 1955 when a misprint in a local newspaper resulted in local children calling NORAD for updates on Santa. Staff went along with the mistake and gave the children updates on Santa’s journey.

NORAD uses high tech methods of tracking aerospace travel in order to protect the airspace above the United States. On Christmas Eve, NORAD uses four types of technology to track Santa including radar, satellites, Santa cams and fighter jets. In addition to the NORAD website and local news channels, the Santa Tracker is also available on Google Earth and Google Maps.

Once Santa enters United States airspace, he is welcomed and guided in by fighter pilots flying top of the line fighter planes including F-15s, F-16s and F-22s. Santa, his reindeer and his precious cargo are well protected as Santa hurries to finish his appointed rounds by Christmas morning.

“This year, nearly 25 million people around the world are expected to follow Santa’s journey in real-time on the Web, on their mobile devices, by e-mail and by phone,” wrote Capt. Jeff Davis, NORAD’s public affairs director. “This combination of new and old technologies is essential to helping NORAD keep up with the incredible demand for Santa tracking that grows each year.”

Last year, NORAD fielded over 102,000 phone calls and 7,700 emails.

Even More Ways To Track Santa This Year

Watch Santa make his journey at Cookie Shack because cookies are Santa’s favorite Christmas Eve treat. You can follow Santa in his calendar game at http://ow.ly/84C10. Lots of fun activities are going on at the North Pole and see what Santa’s elves are up to in their busy village. Learn all about Santa Claus on the “About Santa” page.

Click on “Is he Real?” to see more information on the history of Santa and get answers to frequently asked questions.

This year you can also track Santa online using Google Maps.

“While we’ve been tracking Santa since 2004 with Google Earth, this year a team of dedicated Google Maps engineers built a new route algorithm to chart Santa’s journey around the world on Christmas Eve,” wrote Brian McClendon, vice president of Google Maps and Google Earth, in a post Tuesday.

“You’ll be able to follow him on Google Maps and Google Earth, and get his stats at google.com/santatracker beginning at [5 a.m. Eastern Time] Christmas Eve Day,” he noted. While tracking won’t begin until that hour, the site is up now, and kids can explore things to do in Santa’s Village. (Not surprisingly, things work much better in Google’s Chrome browser than they do in others.)

Do you want to know how many cookies Santa has eaten? What about the favorite food of his reindeer? Find out at http://ow.ly/84C10 to see. For a virtual look at Santa’s sleigh in motion traveling the world, click on “Track Santa in Google Earth”.

See how many gifts Santa has delivered and find a countdown to his next stop. With Christmas music playing, you will find lots of fun activities for everyone.

If you are waiting on a delivery from Santa and want to track the arrival, log on to www.noradsanta.org.

Unfortunately, due to widespread power outages after a weekend ice storm some children in Ontario may not be able to log on to NORAD’s website to check if Santa is headed their way.