Privacy policy

The short version

We do not ask you to create an account and we do not sell personal information. The site stores what you type into the contact form, keeps ordinary server logs, and allows Google and its advertising partners to set cookies in order to show ads. That is the whole picture.

What we collect directly

The contact form collects the name, email address, subject and message you submit, along with your IP address and browser user agent. The IP and user agent are recorded to identify and block automated spam, and the rest is kept so we can reply. Messages are stored on the server and are not shared with anyone or used for marketing.

When you look up a forecast, the ZIP code or city name you enter is sent to our server to fetch the forecast and is cached briefly to reduce load on the National Weather Service. It is not tied to your identity and not stored in a profile.

The site sets no cookies of its own. If you dismiss the cookie notice, that preference is kept in your browser's local storage on your own device and is never transmitted to us.

• Contact form: name, email, subject, message, IP address, user agent
• Forecast lookups: the ZIP code or place name you enter, cached briefly and not linked to you
• Server logs: IP address, date and time, page requested, referrer, user agent
• Local storage: whether you have dismissed the cookie notice

Google AdSense and the DART cookie

We use Google AdSense to display advertising. Google, as a third-party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on this site. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visits to this site and other sites on the internet.

Google uses the DART cookie to serve ads based on your visits to this site and others across the web. You may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google advertising settings page at google.com/settings/ads, or the industry opt-out page at aboutads.info. Opting out does not remove advertising; it makes it less relevant to you.

Third-party vendors and ad networks may also serve ads on this site and may use their own cookies, web beacons or similar technologies to measure effectiveness and personalize what you see. We do not control those cookies and cannot access the data they collect. Google's practices are described in its own privacy policy at policies.google.com/technologies/ads.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. The forecast, the city guides and the calculators all work normally with cookies disabled.

Analytics

We may use Google Analytics to understand which pages people find useful and where the site is slow. Analytics data is aggregated, and where the tool offers it we enable IP anonymization. You can prevent Analytics from collecting anything by installing the official Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.

Your California privacy rights (CCPA and CPRA)

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act gives you specific rights over personal information. You have the right to know what categories of personal information we collect and why, the right to request a copy of it, the right to ask us to delete it, the right to correct inaccurate information, and the right to opt out of its sale or sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising.

We do not sell personal information for money. Because advertising cookies set by our advertising partners may constitute "sharing" for cross-context behavioral advertising under California law, you can opt out through the Google advertising settings and industry opt-out links above, and through any Global Privacy Control signal your browser sends, which we honor.

You also have the right not to be discriminated against for exercising any of these rights. To make a request, use the contact form and tell us what you want. We will respond within the timeframe the law requires, and we may need to ask for information to verify your request.

If you are in the European Economic Area or the UK

This site is aimed at a US audience, but visitors from anywhere are welcome. If the General Data Protection Regulation applies to you, our lawful basis for handling contact form submissions is your consent in sending them, and for server logs and spam prevention it is our legitimate interest in keeping the site working and secure. You may request access, correction, deletion, restriction or portability of your data, and you may object to processing based on legitimate interest.

Children

This site is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them, consistent with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. If you believe a child has sent us personal information through the contact form, tell us and we will delete it.

How long we keep things

Contact form messages are kept while they are useful for correspondence and for keeping a record of issues raised, and are deleted when they are no longer needed. Server logs rotate on the host's ordinary schedule. Cached forecast data expires within minutes to hours depending on the type, and contains no personal information at all.

Security

The site is served over HTTPS, and requests arriving over plain HTTP are redirected. Contact form submissions are stored outside the publicly reachable content in files that cannot be retrieved through a web address. No system is perfectly secure, and we do not claim otherwise, but we do not store payment details or passwords because the site has no use for either.

Links to other sites

We link to external sources, including the National Weather Service and the Census Bureau. Once you follow a link you are on their site under their policy, and we are not responsible for their content or their data practices.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes we will update the date at the top of the page. Material changes will be described here rather than made quietly. For any privacy question or request, use the contact form and say what you need.