Weather Forecasts Come to Google Maps

Google Maps has got a treat for weather nerds: The service has added a "weather layer" showing weather conditions and cloud cover around the world, using data provided by the Weather Channel's weather.com and the US Naval Research Laboratory, reports PC World. "To add the weather layer, hover over the widget in the upper right corner of Google Maps and select the weather layer from the list of options," Google explains in a blog post.

So will the king of search become the king of weather? Not with this somewhat underwhelming effort, which "pales next to the wealth of weather apps and sites already available," decides Regina Sinsky at VentureBeat. "Google will buy a company if they get serious about the weather, and that’s how they’ll be a category killer,” the founder of Weather Trends International says. “That’s something we expect will eventually happen." (More Google Maps stories.)