June 2009

National Parks Web Cameras

Every once in a while, when I’m at my desk working, I get a twinge of wanderlust. When the great outdoors calls me, I go to the National Park Service Web Cameras page. From there, I can navigate to some of our favorite places in near real time.

I made this mosaic from several of the images I looked at during my lunch break.

NPS mosaic

Available webcams on the NPS Page:

NPS Cams

Even though the mission of the webpage is to raise awareness of air quality, I like the instant gratification of seeing what the conditions are like in several different parks across the country.

Disclaimer: Some sites are in maintenance mode and the Hawaiian volcano site does not have a camera. Bookmark the site and when you get wanderlust, you can get a peek into the great outdoors.

From the page:

The National Park Service operates digital cameras at many parks to help educate the public on air quality issues. These cameras often show the effects of air pollution such as visibility impairment. Because these cameras are typically located near air quality monitoring sites, the camera web pages display other information along with the photo such as current levels of ozone, particulate matter, or sulfur dioxide air pollutants, visual range, and weather conditions.

Flashback to Grand Canyon Snow

I take a lot of pictures of the scenery when we travel. I consider only a few of my pictures to have that special quality that I want to share with others. Because I take so many when we’re out and about, there are some photos that I want to share that I can’t in real time. So that’s why this December photo is finally getting published in June. I think it’s a pretty view of Grand Canyon in it’s winter coating. Click on the image to enlarge.

canyon-snow.jpg