What is it about the weather that’s so fascinating? Sure it’s nice to know whether it’s going to rain, but apart from that who needs to know the wind direction at 2.30pm? We reckon it comes from our primordial past when man worked with the elements to survive harvest panics and stuff like that.

We also suspect that weather forecasting hasn’t really improved that much since the days when a Shaman threw some bones in the fire, but tell you what; it’s sure got fancier graphics now!

Take this new WunderMap feature from The Weather Underground site for example. Instead of a boring old chart featuring five day forecasts and the like, you get a beautifully customised Google Map with all the usual overlays like traffic, but with specific overlays that relate to weather and the natural forces thereof.

So for example you can see fire, tornado and hurricane data at the click of a button, as well as move forward in time to get a map snapshot of the weather days, weeks or even years ahead. Good luck with that forecast. We particularly like the webcams which give live images of the weather in real time, it somehow makes it all a bit more personal. There’s also a very cool radar overlay which shows cloud cover etc in real time. Nice.

Definitely worth a bookmark, doubly so if you’re a gardener/stall holder etc.