Norad Santa tracker – LIVE: Follow Santa Claus as he delivers Christmas gifts on start of global journey
He’s made his list, he’s checked it twice – join us on Father Christmas’s journey around the world
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Your support makes all the difference.Santa Claus and his reindeer have begun their journey around the globe, with billions of stops to make in less than 24 hours.
Father Christmas is currently steering his sleigh through the Pacific, having already delivered hundreds of millions of gifts.
Every Christmas Eve, Norad – the North American Aerospace Defense Command – provides real-time tracking of Santa’s sleigh as it navigates the skies.
The cherished tradition dates back to 1955 when a misprint in a department store advert led a young child to call a Colorado military command center asking to speak to Santa Claus.
Air Force Colonel Harry Shoup, who picked up the call that night, played along and assured the child he was Santa. As more calls poured in, he assigned an officer to handle the queries, starting a festive custom that Norad continued after its creation in 1958.
For decades, Norad has swapped its usual airspace monitoring duties to answer children’s questions about Santa’s journey and his astonishing present-delivery operation. Each year, at least 100,000 kids call into the organisation to inquire about Santa’s location. Millions more follow online – in nine languages – as St Nick swoops along the earth’s meridians.
Stay tuned for updates as we follow Santa’s magical route across the world.
‘He’s one of the best aviators we’ve ever seen'
U.S. military personnel may have access to high-tech jets and drones, but they’ve still got respect for the good ol’ sleigh.
“We know Santa has been doing this for over 2,000 years. He is one of the best aviators we have ever seen. ... In his 2,000 years plus, he has never had an accident,” 2nd Lt. Tyler Turnmire, with the 601 Air Operations Center at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, told news station WSAW.
According to NORAD, Mr. Claus is currently above the Chile-Argentina border.
Santa nears the Faroe Islands
Maybe Santa is looking for some R&R on his round-the-world journey, because NORAD is showing Santa’s sleigh nearing the Faroe Islands, a self-governing archipelago nation within the Kingdom of Denmark.
The islands have become a haven for travelers in recent years, described as one of Europe’s best kept secrets.
Don’t rest too long, St. Nick, there are still so many presents to be delivered!
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Santa en route to Liberia
Santa Claus is en route to Monrovia, Liberia, where he is set to deliver sackfuls of presents to the West African country’s 5.5million population.
Liberia was founded in 1822 as an outpost for freed American slaves returning to Africa from bondage in the Americas. It eventually became a commonwealth, and achieved independence in 1847.
The capital, Monrovia, is named after the fifth US president James Monroe, who supported the territory’s colonisation and helped fund its establishment.
Santa en route to Barcelona, Spain
Santa Claus is now en route to Barcelona, Spain. The Catalan capital is home to just under two million people - a lot of chimneys for Father Christmas to climb down.
Santa visits Sarajevo
Santa Claus just dropped off sackfuls of presents to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, in time for Christmas Day morning.
Sarajevo has a population of just under 300,000 and is surrounded by the majestic Dinaric Alps once used by the Bosnian Serbs to besiege the city during the break up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Next stop Angola
Santa Claus is now en route to Luanda, the capital of Angola. It is a port city on the west coast of Southern Africa, home to around 9million people.
Father Christmas brings presents to South Africa
Father Christmas has made it all the way to South Africa to deliver his presents after setting off from the North Pole earlier today.
He arrived on his sleigh in Johannesburg just now, a vibrant city of just six million. He is now en route to Cape Town to drop off more presents made by his crafty hard-working elves.
Santa lands in Bethlehem
Santa Claus has landed in Bethlehem. The Palestinian town in the West Bank is the birthplace of Jesus Christ and where the Christian Church of the Nativity is.
Why did Norad start tracking Santa?
The tradition began in 1955, when a child mistakenly rang a Colorado military command asking to speak to Father Christmas – after a local newspaper ran an advert by a department store containing a misprinted phone number.
As more calls came in that night, Commander Shoup assigned a duty officer to continue answering the phone, birthing a tradition that passed over to Norad when it was formed in 1958.
Every year since, the agency — which defends and monitors the skies over North America — has fielded children’s questions about the red-and-white-clad chimney intruder and his unrivaled delivery schedule.
What route does Santa take?
Santa usually starts at the International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean and travels west.
So, historically, Santa visits the South Pacific first, then New Zealand and Australia. After that, he shoots up to Japan, over to Asia, across to Africa, then onto Western Europe, Canada, the United States, Mexico and Central and South America.
“Keep in mind, Santa’s route can be affected by weather, so it’s really unpredictable,” Norad states on its website.
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