Google Maps Gets a Weather Layer
Google Maps now features a weather layer. It’s a slightly limited tool, though, and no substitute for a fully featured weather site.
One of the most popular ways to use Google Maps on third-party sites is as a background for weather data. Quite a few of the larger weather sites use Google Maps to provide their users with weather maps and then use a radar or cloud overlay on top of it. Now, however, you can see weather information right in Google Maps itself. Google today launched a new weather layer on Google Maps that displays temperature and cloud for almost every city in the world.
Overall, this is a nice little addition to Google Maps if you want to get a glance at the weather forecast for a place you are travelling to. Before you get too excited, though, it’s worth noting that this layer only displays current weather conditions and clouds, as well as a five-day forecast from Weather.com when you click on one of the weather icons. It does not, however, display any radar data. Because of this, it’s not really a substitute for a full-blown weather site like Weather.com, Accuweather or WeatherUnderground.
Data from Weather.com – Which Uses Bing Maps…
One oddity here is that Google gets most of its data from Weather.com – which uses Bing Maps to display its weather maps.
