Australia will move 1.8 metres on New Year's Day
You might want to ring in the new year with a seatbelt because Australia is going to move nearly two metres on New Year's Day.
As you may know, our nation drifts north by 7 cm every year. While 7 cm doesn't seem like a big deal, it adds up over time and has the potential to be a very big problem for Global Positioning System (GPS).
Online maps and GPS use longitude and latitude coordinates to determine location, but this system has not been updated since 1994. This means that your GPS devices currently think Australia is where it was in 1994, approximately 1.5m south of where it really is.
With driverless cars on the way, this small difference in position could be the difference between the road and the sidewalk so it's vital they are kept up to date. On New Years Day, this system is going to be updated to match where Australia will be located in 2020, so our maps will be off by about 20 cm and will align perfectly in 2020.
As the width of Torres Straight is some 159 km, it will not be long before we join New Guinea.