NORAD to track Santa's journey tonight

The organization will be using high-tech radar systems, satellites, Santa Cams, and fighter jets to track the journey.

NORAD once again will be partnering with Google to help children track the journey of Santa. NORAD will provide updates of his location throughout the day.

Tracking Santa’s journey
St. Nick and his reindeer will take off from the North Pole at around 2 a.m. EST, and any one can follow their progress through NORAD's Web site www.noradsanta.org. or via Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps, or Google Earth.

Thousands of volunteers, telephones, and computers will also answer the calls and e-mails from children and adults, inquiring about Santa’s location, over a 25-hour period.

Families can call at 1-877-HI- NORAD (1-877-446-6723), and the e-mails will be answered at noradtrackssanta@gmail.com.

Tradition of tracking Santa
NORAD is the bi-national, U.S.-Canadian military organization responsible for the aerospace and maritime defense of the United States and Canada.

The organization has been tracking Santa for more than 50 years now. It has been using its powerful tracking systems, such as the Distant Early Warning Line, to track Santa Claus after he leaves the North Pole to deliver his presents to children in North America, and in more recent years, around the world.

The tradition of tracking the journey began in 1955 after an advertisement in a newspaper by a company named Sears Roebuck & Co., asking children to contact Santa, misprinted the telephone number.

Instead of reaching Santa, the children were connected to the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Commander-in-Chief's operations hotline.

As more and more phone calls came in, the staff at CONAD started giving children the updates about the location of Santa, making his way south from the North Pole, by using their radars.

Since then the tradition of tracking Santa began. NORAD, formed in 1958, then took up the tradition.