Privacy

There is no account, no server-side profile, and nothing to opt out of. This page explains what actually happens, since “we respect your privacy” is not information.

The application

Accessible Weather Center is entirely client-side. It runs in your browser, or on your machine, and there is no back end holding anything about you.

What is stored, and where

Your home location, your saved favourites and all of your settings live in local storage — in your own browser profile, or in the desktop app's own data directory. None of it is transmitted anywhere. Clearing your browser data for this site erases it completely, and the app returns to its first-run state.

What your device requests, and from whom

The app talks to public data sources directly from your device. This server is not in the middle of any of it and never learns your location:

api.weather.gov: National Weather Service forecasts, observations and alerts. A US Government service.
api.zippopotam.us: Turns the ZIP code you enter into coordinates.
RainViewer: Radar imagery tiles.
FAA National Airspace System status: Airport delay data, only if you enable that scene.
radio.weatherusa.net: The NOAA Weather Radio stream, only when you turn Weather Radio on. In a browser this one does pass through this server — see below.

The National Weather Service asks API users to identify themselves, so those requests carry the application's name and a contact address. They do not carry anything about you.

The one exception: Weather Radio in a browser

The Icecast host that carries the NOAA Weather Radio feeds sends no cross-origin headers, which means a browser cannot play those streams from it at all. To make Weather Radio work on the web, this server relays the stream at /nwr/.

So while Weather Radio is playing in your browser, this server passes the audio through, and its access log records the request the way it records any other — the station you chose, your IP address, and the time. It does not record your location, your favourites or your settings, because it is never sent them. The desktop builds skip the relay and connect directly, so this does not apply there.

This website

The pages you are reading now use GoatCounter, self-hosted on this same server. It is cookieless, counts page views without building a profile, and no data leaves this machine. There is no Google Analytics, no advertising network, and no third-party script of any kind — the fonts and stylesheets are served from here rather than from a CDN specifically so that visiting this site tells nobody else that you did.

The web server keeps standard access logs (IP address, page requested, timestamp, browser user-agent) as any web server does. They are used for debugging and for spotting abuse.

No cookies are set by this site for tracking. There is nothing here to consent to.

In short

No account, ever. There is nothing to sign up for.
Your location is stored on your device and sent only to the public weather APIs your device queries directly.
This server sees your location: never.
This server relays audio while Weather Radio is on, and logs that request like any other.
Analytics are self-hosted and cookieless; nothing is shared with a third party.

Questions about any of this are fair game — get in touch.