NORTH BAY – With less than a month until Christmas Eve, The North American Aerospace Defense Command is preparing its yearly escort of jolly old Saint Nick.
This will be the 64th year NORAD will escort Santa Claus when he enters Canadian airspace and makes his festive journey across the country.
NORAD began tracking Santa in 1955 when a local media advertisement misprinted a phone number that children could use to call Santa. When kids phoned, they instead reached the crew commander at NORAD's predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command Operations Center. The crew gave children Santa's location and then NORAD carried on the track in 1958.
Tracking Santa on Christmas Eve has been a long-standing tradition. NORAD uses 47 radio installations across Canada's north and Alaska, satellites that are located 22,300 miles above the earth which can detect Rudolph's bright red nose, CF-18 fighter jets which take off from Newfoundland and high-speed digital cameras called SantaCams.
NORAD expects more than 1,250 Canadian and American volunteers will track Santa, as well as answer calls and emails this Christmas Eve.
You can find out where Santa is in the sky on Christmas Eve by calling NORAD at 1-877-446-6723 from 3:00 a.m., December 24 to 3:00 a.m., December 25.
You can also reach them vie email at noradtrackssanta@outlook.com, while mobile phone users can track Santa's location using the official Windows 10 app.
More information will be available at www.noradsanta.org started December 1.
