With all of the great features in Google Earth 5.2, one that often gets overlooked is the great weather enhancements.
The radar layers have been around since late 2007, and they haven’t changed a whole lot since then. In March of 2008 they expanded to more countries, giving you satellite and radar imagery for any place that you want to see.
With this latest update, they’ve added a bit more eye candy. If you fly beneath a rainstorm, you’ll actually see rain falling in Google Earth! This requires a fairly powerful graphics card, though I don’t know the specifics on that.
Turn on the radar, find a green area and watch it rain! If you’re not able to see it, here’s a screenshot to show you what it’s like:
For more about this, you can read the full entry on the Google Lat Long Blog.
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.
iMac
Intel Core 2 Duo
2.66 GHz
ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro
works perfect!
This is the sort of stuff i would like to see more of. A small environmental effect that has a huge inpact on the atmosphere of the program. If they can produce a better lighting engine and improve cloud display then you have a contender for MS flight simulator (ok may a lot more work is needed for that, but it would be nice!)
This is the sort of stuff i would like to see more of. A small environmental effect that has a huge inpact on the atmosphere of the program. If they can produce a better lighting engine and improve cloud display then you have a contender for MS flight simulator (ok may a lot more work is needed for that, but it would be nice!)
ATI RADEON HD 5470
works perfect
-sorry,forgot to post a comment-
anyway..you gotta admit..that is such EPICNESS =D
oh, and do I have to download google earth again to get the new feature?…probably not but I’m still not shure if I have to
I wanna see if this works in the latest GE I have.
Works great on my older Dell laptop – Vostro 1700! Love it!
I can’t see it. How far do i have to tilt to see it?
Weather watching is univeral. A great addition to Google Earth and think of all the engineering and technology involved.
lol can’t see, my computer is 4 years old.Its a live dead thing.Pentium 4 at least here does not work.
i cannot see it. am i doing something wrong?
Google earth is really a very helpful software and enhancements are really appreciated. Thanks for the update.
Just amazing. Who needs tv when you have Google Earth. Really enjoyed the info about how to watch the rain. Thanks, John