Today's Weather Forecast-Sunny in the Deserts, Rainy in the Rainforests

I was looking something up on CNN when I came across these weather maps. What's remarkable (or not) is how well they seem to conform to the climate zone patterns of the world. I poorly stitched together the southern hemisphere continents minus Australia (too hard to deal with the scale difference there). I had to rotate Asia for projection issues. Anyway here's a comparison.


CNN's weather forecast for the southern hemisphere.

World Precipitation from Encarta.

Brave Shoe World

This map was posted on the Strangemaps blog last month and I couldn't resist stealing it.
Created by Jordanian political cartoonist Emad Hajjaj, it shows countries and continents as shoes, often in cliched regional styles. Western boots for the USA and Mexico, a pair of mukluks for Canada (with Alaska as a cowboy boot toe), furry boots for Russia and a vaguely Indian looking boot. South America and Africa (except Madagascar) only get one boot per continent with South America being represented as a soccer shoe - cause you know, they're soccer crazy!
There are lots of clever things with the shapes. The soccer shoe really is shaped like South America, Baja California is a high heel, the islands of northern Canada together form a boot and if you look carefully the Caspian Sea is shaped like a boot while the Black Sea is a shoe. And of course Italy is shaped like a boot.
If there's any political meaning behind this it's lost on me. Interestingly his own country is not represented. I could speculate on deeper meanings but I'd rather just appreciate the map.