Hm, I can no longer reproduce this, but my first click ended 22km away in a reservoir somewhere in the midwestern United States. Colorado maybe? But it wasn't Dillon; everything running into Dillon just passed through. I only mention it because I can't find any references to reservoirs acting as endorheic basins in the midwest.
River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up
31–40 of 128 posts
Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up
#32This is great! I got a chuckle though that this is for the US only, but it shows distance in km instead of miles. I'd love it if we changed to metric but I don't see that happening any time soon.
It will happen if we keep making new things (like this tool) that use km instead of miles.
Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up
#33Is the map loading initially ok then suddenly distorting to become unreadable after a second or two for anyone else? I'm on Firefox, with lots of about:config hacking, particularly preventing canvas being used for fingerprinting, so the website maybe can't handle unavailability of certain features.
Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up
#34Is the map loading initially ok then suddenly distorting to become unreadable after a second or two for anyone else? I'm on Firefox, with lots of about:config hacking, particularly preventing canvas being used for fingerprinting, so the website maybe can't handle unavailability of certain features.
For me this worked on Firefox without issue.
Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up
#35It would be an interesting problem to see / solve where in this map would a drop travel the most. By just clicking, I got one that travels from Cavour, South Dakota to Gulf of Mexico over a 3523 Kms journey. I am sure there must be something that is longer! Edit - some of the routes stop at border of Canada - is this due to lack of dataset?
The source of the Missouri River - Brower's Spring apparently - is probably close to the point where it's longest. I can't find it exactly on this map, but have got up to 5790km, from a point just by Yellowstone Airport.
The code is at https://github.com/sdl60660/river-runner/, it would be quite possible to base a solver on that.
Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up
#36Great piece of work. But what struck me the most is how little of the real America is left. Everything is basically covered by plowed-under farmland. All it takes is Google earth and a bit sensitivity to what you are looking at. Humanity has really left a giant scar on the face of the earth.
Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up
#37I'm not a programmer, but as an environmental engineering student that was an astonishing work. Congratulations :)
Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up
#38It would be an interesting problem to see / solve where in this map would a drop travel the most. By just clicking, I got one that travels from Cavour, South Dakota to Gulf of Mexico over a 3523 Kms journey. I am sure there must be something that is longer! Edit - some of the routes stop at border of Canada - is this due to lack of dataset?
You can click in Northern Montana for longer routes, e.g. Browning, Montana gives about 5587km.
Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up
#39Accolades! Since no one else has done it I will ask for features: sometimes it takes a while for it to determine the route, there is no way to cancel that to go back to trying a new raindrop location Wish there was a different way to get back to raindrop location instead of closing the existing route. Would prefer some kind of click/tap-state or gesture. More easily noticeable of an inconvenience on an ultrawide scre…
I love it. Another feature request would be to not fly the path but just show the plotted flow.
Re: River Runner: drop a raindrop anywhere in the USA, watch where it ends up
#40This is amazing, outstanding project! Interestingly, I got it "stuck" when I clicked somewhere random in California (Pope Valley, apparently): https://i.imgur.com/deOsIt2.png
Is there a lake there in real life?