Where's Santa? NORAD Track Santa and Google Santa Tracker now live

Santa Claus has already started his rounds so it's time for you to track his whereabouts using the internet. This year, however, there are two services that allow you to see where Father Christmas has visited and will visit next, the traditional NORAD Tracks Santa site and Google's new Santa Tracker.

The NORAD system, being well established, offers all manner of extras. It has a 3D map of the globe, which you can expand to full screen, or you can switch to a 2D view. Obviously, Santa has a lot to get through during Christmas Eve, so the present count is moving rapidly - it was already well over one billion delivered at the time of writing.

Google's new Santa Tracker comes after its partnership with NORAD came to an end - with the North American Aerospace Defense Command choosing Microsoft and Bing this year. The Google service shows the jolly one's current location on a Google Maps page, and offers up a few games and interesting statistics, to boot.

The Google Santa Tracker will also tell you an estimated time of arrival if you click on the icon in the area you live. It'll also tell you the weather thanks to the Weather Channel.

Click on the parcels on NORAD's Track Santa and you'll get useful Wikipedia entries on the location.

Whichever you choose, we think it's a fun way to keep in the Christmas spirit. Speaking of which, where did we leave the brandy?

You can visit the NORAD Track Santa page at noradsanta.org. Google Santa Tracker is at google.com/santatracker.

You can also track Father Christmas using your mobile phone on Google Maps. Just search for "Santa" and the app will point you to the location he visited last.

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