Military tracks storybook flight of St. Nick for 60th year

This year, Microsoft has made the tracking system even easier to use by plugging updates into Cortana and giving kids more detail on Santa’s locations through Bing.

Children will be able to watch him flying his sleigh from country to country.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command has been working for weeks to tackle the one-day mission.

In 1955, a Colorado Springs-based Sears, Roebuck & Co. advertisement misprinted the telephone number for children to call Santa. So staff checked the radar for signs of Santa making his way south from the North Pole and gave kids updates on his location.

For one night a year ever since, they now monitor Santa as he tracks across the world, and delivers presents.

“NORAD can confirm that Santa’s sleigh is a versatile, all weather, multi-purpose, vertical short-take-off and landing vehicle”, said NORAD spokesman Lt. Marco Chouinard.

The NORAD Tracks Santa website was launched earlier this month at http://www.noradsanta.org.

NORAD has been tracking Santa for roughly 60 years.

Google’s Santa tracker is back for another year of festive fun. Then, starting at 4 a.m. (ouch) MST, phone lines will open up for the Santa-curious to speak with live operators who will dish on the big guy’s coordinates: 1-877-Hi-NORAD (1-877-446-6723).

NORAD Tracks Santa is truly a global experience, delighting generations of families everywhere.

NORAD volunteers work Christmas Eve, providing status reports on St. Nick’s journey across the globe. Costs of the annual NORAD Santa tracking program are paid entirely by corporate sponsors.

NORAD’s mission to scan the skies above North America makes it an obvious fit for the task of tracking Santa, but the entire enterprise began by accident.

Knott said, “I think when you go and you’re doing all of your holiday traditions on December 24th and you’re getting ready, there’s just something special about either calling into the operations center or checking the website and seeing where’s Santa right now?”