Prepared Ground

Releases

What changed, and when.

The current release is 2026-10-02. Every download carries its release date at the top of its README.md, so you can put your copy next to this page and see whether you have the current one.

Updates

A purchase is the release you are sent; later releases are not included. To get notified when a layer is added or corrected, join the mailing list.

A release is dated by the last change to the maps in it, not by the day it went up, so the date is a fact about the files rather than about the shop.

  1. release 2026-10-02 Current

    Six more layers in the complete map

    • The national County Screen is retired; your own state's screen, free, replaces it. The complete map is now 35 filter layers.
    • Military Installations moves from on request into the complete map.
    • Added Nuclear Strike — Largest Cities and Nuclear Strike — Largest Bases: blast rings and idealised fallout plumes for one 800 kt warhead on each target, with wind envelopes.
    • Added Canada — Cold War Bunkers and USA — Cold War Bunkers: the continuity-of-government networks, with how precise each location is stated per placemark.
    • Added Remote and Connected: remote US counties where a real connection can still be bought, scored on rural locations only.
    • The filtering guide covers all six new layers.
    • The Land Pack is retired: the set is now the free state map, the complete map at $49, and custom layers at $100.

  2. release 2026-09-24

    Rainfall, the temperature set, and a free map per state

    • Added Annual Rainfall: total annual precipitation in ten bands on a 5-arc-minute grid rather than a county average, checked against 7,092 NOAA station normals.
    • Added three Temperature layers on the same grid — Winter Low, Summer High and Annual Mean — each stating where the grid runs warm or cool against the NOAA stations, and why the three belong together.
    • Land Pack grows from nine layers to thirteen at the same price; the complete map from 26 to 30.
    • The free layer is now your own state's screen — every county in it ranked on water, privacy, hazard and access, all 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico built. The national County Screen it replaces moves into the complete map.
    • Annual Rainfall's stated verification figures are now measured on the drawn grid rather than the source raster (1.010 nationally, 1.290 in snow-dominated counties).

  3. release 2026-08-23

    Ring fix

    • Well Depth and Broadband Canada each carried four polygon rings that collapsed to fewer than three distinct positions once written, and Google Earth had been silently rejecting those features on import. Dropped; no county or division lost its place or its band.
    • Military Installations added to the catalogue, on request only — not in any pack.

  4. release 2026-08-21

    First release

    • 26 layers across the United States, Canada and Mexico, one .kmz per layer.
    • Complete map $49, Land Pack $25, the County Screen free.