Gravity is not the same all over the planet. One of the factors that can have an effect on surface gravity is the density of the underlying rock: higher-density rock increases surface gravity (ever so slightly).  This map of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio is part of a Bouguer gravity anomaly map,  showing higher-gravity regions in pink/red and lower-gravity regions in blue. Because of the underlying rock, you will weigh more in southern Illinois than in eastern Ohio, for example. www.atlasobscura.com/articles/strange-maps-uneven-gravity

Drought in the Midwest is leading to lower water levels in the Mississippi River again this year, which is leading to salt water encroaching up the river and threatening the water supplies of New Orleans. Although the "saltwater wedge" isn't supposed to arrive for a couple of weeks, New Orleans residents are starting to empty grocery stores shelves of bottled water.

"The crisis is a result of drought conditions in the Midwest, which have sapped water levels in the Mississippi, allowing salty water from the Gulf to creep upstream beneath a freshwater layer. Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers say the “saltwater wedge,” which has already affected communities downstream, could reach water treatment plants near New Orleans in about a month, pushing the salty water into household faucets. About a million people across southeastern Louisiana could be affected. Officials are working to slow the influx by strengthening an underwater sill, or levee, at the bottom of the Mississippi, and preparing to ship tens of millions of gallons of fresh water from upstream by barge to affected treatment facilities on a daily basis. Still, managing the demand for clean water could take a herculean effort, Dr. [Jesse] Keenan [of Tulane University] said, especially because it is unclear how long the intrusion could last. City officials said this week that they were planning for as long as three months, based on expert advice. In previous dry years, including in 1988 and 2012, officials in Louisiana managed to avert major problems, but this could be different: It’s the second straight year in which water levels have dropped drastically because of heat and drought intensified by climate change."
www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/us/new-orleans-saltwater-intrusion.html

A confluence of factors -- including concentrated wealth searching for investment outlets and rising interest rates -- is leading to a growing proportion of single-family homes in the U.S. being purchased for cash and turned into rental housing. This map takes as a case study a middle-class neighborhood in Charlotte, NC. (Map from  www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/09/16/realestate/home-sales-north-carolina-wall-street.html.)

The state of Massachusetts has an interactive site that maps all bear sightings in the state (not counting Boston Bruins) from 2019 to the present: massbears.wordpress.amherst.edu/sightings-map/

This interactive map tracks anticipated foliage changes in the contiguous U.S.: smokymountains.com/fall-foliage-map/

September is apple-picking time, but in Benton County, Arkansas (today, better known as the headquarters of Walmart) there is an unusual apple that is picked in the fall but not eaten until months later. The Arkansas Black was discovered in an Arkansas orchard in the 1870s and grown commercially until the Great Depression. Today, it is making a bit of a comeback as regional specialty. https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/arkansas-black-apple

New York City recently passed restrictions on renting out properties on sites like Airbnb. Although NYC has (had?) a lot of Airbnb listings, other tourist destinations -- like Hawaii, New Orleans and Washington, DC -- have a lot more on a per capita basis.  Asheville, NC, in the Blue Ridge Mountains, has the highest proportion of properties listed on Airbnb. www.statista.com/chart/30761/airbnb-listings-per-1000-inhabitants-in-the-us

With Hurricane Lee dawdling off the Atlantic Coast of the U.S., this graph from NOAA is a reminder that this is the busiest time of year for hurricanes.  (Graph from www.nola.com/news/hurricane/hurricane-lee-becomes-a-cat-3-storm-no-threat-to-the-gulf/article_fe6ad090-4f64-11ee-984f-3facb7542d5c.html.)

If your state doesn't produce enough doctors to meet demand, where are the doctors in your state most likely from?  This map, based on U.S. Census data, answers that question. (Map from www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/18/states-most-artists-writers/.)

Which states produce the most physicians per capita? According to the Census Bureau, as shown on this map, the District of Columbia, New York, and Utah have produced the most people employed as physicians over the last 10 years. (Map from www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/08/18/states-most-artists-writers/.)

Crash Map maps fatal car crashes across the contiguous U.S. by state, by county, and by date. In many states, August is among the worst months for fatal car crashes. nextbase.com/crash-map

Although not population adjusted, this map from Statista highlights the U.S. states that make above-average contributions to U.S. GDP and notes a few that punch above their weight (California, Massachusetts, New York) and below their weight (Florida): www.statista.com/chart/9358/us-gdp-by-state-and-region

Last fall, low water levels on the Mississippi River cost the U.S. economy an estimated $20 billion in shipping losses. This spring, the Mississippi rebounded, flooding communities in Iowa and Illinois. But a dry summer is again threatening shipping. This map compares water levels at major ports along the Mississippi with historic averages. (Map from www.wsj.com/articles/mississippi-river-careens-from-floods-to-low-water-threatening-barge-traffic-a6d5758d.)

College football starts in a few weeks. Last week it was announced that in 2024 the Big Ten athletic conference, originally 10 mostly large land-grant universities in the Midwest, will expand to 18 teams, spread from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast. This map shows the states in which the original Big Ten teams are located (in red), the states with universities that joined the Big Ten in the last 30 years (in black), and the location of the four new member universities starting next year (in white).

Novelist and UC Riverside professor of creative writing Susan Straight has created a literary map of America, collaborating with ESRI to locate and label the settings of 1,001 novels that celebrate America, from small towns and city neighborhoods to ranches, bayous, deserts, and frozen tundra. To see the selections and their associated places, see storymaps.arcgis.com/collections/997b82273a12417798362d431897e1dc?item=13

Timed for release the same day as the Hollywood movie "Oppenheimer," a new study finds that nuclear radiation from the July 16, 1945 U.S. nuclear test, code named "Trinity," was "much stronger than anticipated. ... [The mushroom] cloud and its fallout went farther than anyone in the Manhattan Project had imagined in 1945. Using state-of-the-art modeling software and recently uncovered historical weather data, the study’s authors say that radioactive fallout from the Trinity test reached 46 states, Canada and Mexico within 10 days of detonation." The timelapse map in this New York Times article shows the likely spread of radiation over the first 10 days following "Trinity": www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/science/trinity-nuclear-test-atomic-bomb-oppenheimer.html

As extreme heat grips much of the world, Death Valley, CA seems to have set a new record: its midnight temperature was measured at 120°F.  The low a few hours later was measured at 105°F, which would also be a record if confirmed. www.newscientist.com/article/2382959-death-valley-may-have-just-had-the-hottest-recorded-midnight-ever/

California is the green-energy state, right? Actually, Texas significantly outperforms California in the production of electricity from wind and solar: i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/73928045cb552a9fba511ccc35840123.png (Geo-graphic from Quartz.)

All 50 U.S. states and all 13 Canadian provinces and territories have an official bird.  The maps in this article from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology instead re-imagine the bird of each state and province/territory based on eBird data: which bird is most likely to make the state its primary home? Instead of the Baltimore Oriole, for example, Maryland might want to consider the Seaside Sparrow because more than 13% of the global population of Seaside Sparrows breeds in Maryland. Virginia would trade the Northern Cardinal for the Acadian Flycatcher because, during breeding season, Virginia has a higher density of Acadian Flycatchers than any other state. Louisiana would keep the Brown Pelican because 37% of the world's Brown Pelicans breed in Louisiana. www.allaboutbirds.org/news/a-modest-proposal-can-ebird-help-choose-better-state-birds-part-1/#

A topographic map of California quickly reveals the Central Valley, a broad valley that runs nearly the length of California, from north of Sacramento to south of Bakersfield. Today, that is some of the U.S.'s most productive agricultural land. But historically it has also been a lake, filled to a depth of three feet or more following years with abundant rain or snowfall, like this year. In the southern basin of the Central Valley was Tulare Lake, once the biggest body of freshwater west of the Mississippi River. With snow melting in the mountains this spring, Tulare Lake has reemerged, with more than 150 square miles of lake bed refilling to submerge farms, roads, homes, electrical transformers, and anything else that might have been there: www.nytimes.com/2023/06/25/us/california-storms-tulare-lake.html.

Have peach prices been higher in your grocery store this spring? Even though California and South Carolina grow most of the country's peaches, this year's supply has been dented by the failure of Georgia's peach crop: at least 90% of the Peach State's crop was done in by early blooming followed by a cold snap, resulting in the first loss of Georgia's peach crop since 1955.  A handful of orchards in the center of the state account for 95% of Georgia's peaches and usually send about 150 million peaches to grocery stores.  www.economist.com/united-states/2023/06/08/georgia-the-peach-state-has-no-peach-crop-this-year

According to the latest Census data released last week, Black Americans are continuing to move out of urban areas in the North, Midwest, and West, some departing for nearby suburbs and some for urban areas in the South.  (Map from www.wsj.com/articles/black-americans-are-leaving-cities-in-the-north-and-west-c05bb118.)

The U.S. "electricity grid" is not a single entity: as this map shows, the bulk of the national grid is actually three almost entirely unconnected regional grids operated by a patchwork of different operators. The maps in this article from the New York Times illustrate the fragmentation of the U.S. electricity grid. (Map from www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/12/climate/us-electric-grid-energy-transition.html)

Last week's smoky air has dissipated on the East Coast, but this is almost certainly not the last time you will find yourself wondering about air quality. The Environmental Protection Agency's AirNow map shows air-quality data, updated hourly: gispub.epa.gov/airnow/?monitors=pm (You can select for ozone, particulate matter, or both.)

The headlines associated with the first geo-graphic in this article tend to focus on hot job creation rates in politically "red" vs. "blue" states. This analysis, though, goes deeper into the hiring numbers to discuss connections with job churn, wages, education, and housing: www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/26/hiring-red-blue-states/