Something seems to be missing from online weather maps.

They show major highways and town names. But have you ever seen one get detailed enough to show neighborhoods and street names and, by extension, truly localized weather?

The Weather Channel is unveiling a product Monday that could change that.

The Atlanta-based cable channel has partnered with Microsoft Corp. to offer detailed road maps combined with satellite imagery. The result is an interactive Web map that lets users zoom in to get a localized snapshot of current weather. That is, to see how it's affecting their neighborhood _ not just the city as a whole. . . .

The company will next start mapping out points of interest, such as golf courses, ski resorts and parks. And eventually, it hopes the program can show a localized weather forecast for the hours and days ahead.

The Weather Channel has been said to be in cahoots with the Dish Network to provide your local radar for two years or so, but I have only seen it appear once. The resolution was terrible and it wouldn't shut off and I had to reboot the box.

Searching Microsoft TerraServer, I find a topographical map from 1984 and an aerial photo from 1999. They both show the same location, about a mile away far down in the valley.

There is reasonably good weather radar online now, so if they simply mean radar on top of old photos, and blown up, or interpolated, rather than with actually improved resolution, it's a colorized yawn.

(Yes, I know about Channel 100, but that thing crashes the box every single time.)