Privacy policy
Last updated: 31 October 2026
The short version
No accounts and no advertising. We use Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages help people; it sets first-party cookies. Searches are remembered in your browser, and forecast lookups are cached temporarily on the server.
What happens when you use the calculator
- Your ZIP code or city is turned into a map point inside your browser.
- That point is sent to our server, which rounds it to two decimal places (roughly 1 km) before asking the National Weather Service for the forecast. The request to NWS comes from our server.
- If you press "Use my location", your browser asks your permission first. The browser sends coordinates to our server to fetch the forecast. The calculator does not save GPS coordinates in local storage. Rounded coordinates are used in temporary server cache keys.
- Your last search, up to four recent searches, and school type are saved in your browser (local storage). Clear your browser's site data to remove them. The input's clear button only clears the current search field, not saved history.
Temporary caches and links
Rounded coordinate lookups are cached for up to one day. Forecast grid data is cached for up to 30 minutes, and alerts for up to five minutes. These caches help avoid repeated requests to NWS.
ZIP code and city searches appear in the page URL, including copied links, and may remain in browser history. GPS coordinates are not added to the page URL or copied link. Forecast request URLs contain coordinates, which Cloudflare may process as part of hosting.
Hosting
The site runs on Cloudflare Pages. Like any web host, Cloudflare processes technical data such as IP addresses to deliver the site and protect it from attacks. See Cloudflare's privacy policy.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how many people visit, which pages they read and whether the calculator works for them.
It sets first-party cookies (named _ga and _ga_*) and sends Google technical data such as the page you
viewed, your browser and device type, and an approximate location derived from your IP address. We send the page path only,
not the ZIP code or city you searched for, and never your GPS location. When an estimate finishes we send the school type, the day
and the result band, not the place. Google signals and ad personalization are turned off, and we do not use the data for advertising.
You can block these cookies in your browser settings or with Google's Analytics opt-out browser add-on. See how Google uses data from sites that use its services.
Changes
If we add advertising, we will update this page before it goes live, including any cookie choices you need to make.
Contact
Questions about privacy: see our contact page.