Where is Santa right now? A Christmas Eve tradition has delighted parents and children in the U.S. for the past 70 years: tracking Santa Claus as he travels around the world, with the help of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD. Follow the live updating map below as NORAD once again tracks Santa’s journey from the North Pole to deliver gifts to children around the world.
Where is Santa right now?
NORAD updates its map in real time to show locations during Santa’s journey around the world. The journey begins at the North Pole, and NORAD uses its expertise in satellite technology to track the path of Santa’s sleigh as it glides through the sky.
In addition to live maps on NORAD’s website, updates are being posted on the agency’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube pages.
Santa’s route began by taking him down the International Date Line into the Pacific Ocean. From there they headed west, and their first stays were in the South Pacific, New Zealand, and Australia. He zigzags through Asia, Africa and Europe before crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Canada, the US, Mexico and Central and South America.
NORAD notes that their path can sometimes be unpredictable.
When will Santa come to your house?
Where is Santa right now? Experts at NORAD say Santa typically stops by from 9 p.m. to midnight on Christmas Eve, but the tracker can’t predict the exact time he’ll stop at a particular home.
“Only Santa knows his route, which means we can’t predict where or when he will arrive at your house,” NORAD writes on its website. “However, we know from history that it seems to only come when children are sleeping!”
The President and First Lady answered the call of NORAD’s Santa Tracker.
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, who are vacationing at Mar-a-Lago, participated in the holiday tradition by answering several calls from children who called the NORAD Santa Tracker hotline.
Where is Santa right now? A 10-year-old named Jasper from Oklahoma asked the president how they track Santa.
Mr. Trump responded, “We track Santa all over the world. We want to make sure that Santa is good. Santa is a very good person. We want to make sure that he doesn’t infiltrate, that bad Santa doesn’t infiltrate our country. So we found out that Santa is good. Santa loves you. Santa loves Oklahoma, just like I do. You know, Oklahoma was very good to me in the election, so I love Oklahoma. Never leave Oklahoma, okay?”
Then Jasper’s little sister asked the President when Santa would come to her house. Mr. Trump said he would arrive there tonight and leave behind many “beautiful gifts.”
Mr. Trump asked another little girl what she wanted for Christmas, and the little girl said, “Uh… not coal.”
“No coal?” Mr. Trump responded. “No, you don’t want coal. Well, there’s coal – you mean clean, beautiful coal,” he laughed. “I had to do it, sorry. No, coal is clean and beautiful. Please remember that at all costs. But don’t you want clean, beautiful, coal?”
“No,” the girl said, instead listing the Barbie and a few other gifts she wanted.
What is NORAD?
Where is Santa right now? NORAD, an acronym for North American Aerospace Defense Command, is a bi-national organization that includes both the US and Canada. Its headquarters are at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, and its year-round mission is to protect North America “through aerospace warning, aerospace control, and maritime warning.” NORAD’s technology includes the North Warning System, a powerful radar system with 49 installations in Alaska and northern Canada. NORAD also relies on satellites located 22,300 miles above Earth with infrared sensors to detect heat, and it has fighter jets to patrol and protect its territory.
“Twenty-four, twenty-seven, 365 days a year, we monitor the skies of North America for any aerial threat,” US Air Force Colonel Jason White told CBS News.
On Christmas Eve, that skill is used for a more festive purpose.
How does the Santa tracker work?
Where is Santa right now? Early in the morning on December 24, NORAD begins tracking Santa’s route from the North Pole and maps his journey as he delivers gifts to children around the world. Uniformed personnel and civilian volunteers are working at the NORAD Tracks Santa Operations Center to answer phone calls and provide updates on Santa’s location.
You can call 1-877-HI-NORAD (1-877 446-6723) to get a live update over the phone from one of the call center operators. Operators are available from 4 a.m. Mountain Time (6 a.m. Eastern Time) to midnight MT (2 a.m. ET).
“Last Christmas Eve they recorded 380,000 calls,” White said.
You can also check NORAD’s website, where updates are available in nine languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, and Korean.
What else is there to know about the Santa tracker?
Where is Santa right now? This is the 70th year of the Santa Tracking Mission. It began in 1955 under NORAD’s predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command, or CONAD, and continued the practice every Christmas Eve when NORAD was formed three years later.
The tradition began when a child mistakenly called the CONAD operations center after seeing an advertisement in the newspaper that encouraged readers to call Santa.
“The person who answered that phone didn’t want to disappoint the child on the other end, and just went with it. And since then it’s turned into an annual, repeat trek Santa operation,” White said.
NORAD says the program is made possible by volunteers and supported by funding from corporate sponsors.