Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 24, 2026

This policy explains what WeatherVibe ("we", "our", "us") collects, what we do with it, and what leaves your device, across our mobile application and website (weathervibe.app).

WeatherVibe has two parts, and they handle data differently. The everyday weather app is described in section 1. The Alpha section — an optional area reached from Settings, off unless you turn it on — is a community weather observation network, and it is described in section 2.

1. The everyday weather app

A. Location

To provide weather conditions and wardrobe suggestions, WeatherVibe requests access to your device's geographic location (coarse or fine GPS coordinates).

• On-device processing: Your coordinates are processed on your device to determine your NWS (National Weather Service) grid points.
• NWS and geocoding APIs: Coordinates are transmitted directly to the National Weather Service (api.weather.gov) and OpenStreetMap (nominatim.openstreetmap.org) to obtain weather forecasts and city or state names.
• Not retained by us: Coordinates used for forecasts are not stored on our servers.

B. Analytics and device identifiers

We may collect non-personal analytics and device metrics to improve app stability and experience. If advertising network SDKs are integrated, they may collect mobile identifiers (such as IDFAs on iOS or AdIDs on Android) to customise advertising content in compliance with platform rules.

2. The Alpha section: community weather observations

Alpha is off by default. You turn it on in Settings, and nothing in this section applies until you do and then file a report or answer somebody else's. The everyday weather app described in section 1 does not send observations.

Alpha is a network for collecting hyper-local weather observations from the people standing in the weather. Reports are sent to and stored on our servers, because a network of observations only works when the observations are in one place.

A. What a report contains

When you file a report, the following is sent to our servers and stored:

• Your position at full precision, together with the accuracy figure your device reports. Precision is the purpose: a report rounded to a kilometre cannot say which side of a street the rain stopped on, and that resolution is what the network is for.
• What you reported — the category and intensity you chose, and the place name the app had already resolved.
• Motion and elevation from the same position fix — altitude, altitude accuracy, speed and heading, where your device provides them.
• Device sensor readings, where available — barometric pressure, ambient temperature, altitude and speed. Most phones carry only some of these; where a reading is unavailable we record that it was unavailable rather than a value.
• Timing — when you filed it, when we received it, and when it expires.
• A lightning timing, on reports made with the flash-to-bang timer: the measured delay, the distance derived from it, and the temperature assumed or measured for the calculation.
• The app version that filed it.

B. What is published, and what is not

Reports appear on a public map. What appears there is not your position.

• The published position is displaced. Every report is given a separate map position, generated by moving the real one a random distance and direction over land, and it is that position — never the real one — that is served to any client. The map draws the displaced position as a circle whose size is how far it could have moved. In an area with few reports that circle is up to one mile across; where more people are reporting it can narrow to about 500 feet, because there are more people nearby to be confused with.
• Also published: what was reported, the place name, the timestamps, and how many people have since agreed or disagreed.
• Not published: your exact position, your email address, your device identifier, your sensor readings, and your IP address.
• Individual lightning reports are not drawn on the map at all. A lightning area appears only after several independent timings have been solved together into one located strike.

C. Answering other people's reports

When you answer somebody else's report, we store which report you answered, what you said, your position at the time, and the distance between you and the report. The distance is what makes the answer meaningful: agreement from nearby is worth more than agreement from miles away. Your identity is never shown to the person whose report you answered, and theirs is never shown to you.

D. Identifiers

• A device identifier. Your device generates a random identifier, stored in your browser or app storage, and sends it with each report. It is not derived from your device's hardware, phone number, advertising ID or any account. It exists so that two reports can be told apart from one report filed twice, which is what makes corroboration mean anything.
• Your email address, if you create an account. Accounts are optional; Alpha works without one. If you create one, we store your email address so that we can send you a sign-in link and so that your contribution history follows you to a new device. Sign-in links are sent through Resend (resend.com), our email delivery provider. You may optionally set a display name and a public handle; the public handle, if you set one, appears on shared cards and standings. By default you are not named anywhere.
• Your IP address, shortened to its network prefix, is used to rate limit requests and is kept only for the length of the rate limiting window.

E. How reports are used

Reports are used to build and improve WeatherVibe's picture of local weather conditions, to score their reliability against each other and against other sources, to operate the recognition and points features, and for research and development of our weather products, including forecasting.

F. Where it is stored

Alpha data is stored in a database operated by us on Google Cloud Platform in the United States. If you are outside the United States, filing a report means transferring this information to the United States.

G. How long it is kept

A report stops appearing on the public map when it expires, typically within tens of minutes. The report itself is retained after that as part of the observation record. Account records are kept for as long as the account exists.

H. Heads-up alerts

Heads-up alerts are off until you turn them on. When you do, we store:

• A delivery address issued by your browser or device for sending you notifications, and for browsers the keys your notifications are encrypted to.
• Your device's position, updated when you move or about once a day while you use the app, so we can tell when reported weather is heading toward you.
• Your device identifier (section D), and a record of which alerts were sent, so the same weather is not announced twice.

This is used only to send those alerts. Turning alerts off deletes the delivery address and the position from our servers. They are also deleted when the delivery service tells us the address is no longer valid, or after 30 days without the app being opened. Records of sent alerts are deleted after 24 hours.

3. Third-party services

• National Weather Service (NOAA): weather alerts and forecasts.
• OpenStreetMap (Nominatim): mapping searches to coordinates.
• Windy.com: embedded via an iframe to display local radar widgets.
• CARTO: base map tiles for the Alpha community map.
• Google Cloud Platform: hosting for the Alpha observations service and database.
• Cloudflare: hosting and delivery for the website and application.
• Resend: delivery of account sign-in emails.
• Push delivery services (Google, Apple, Mozilla or Microsoft, depending on your browser or device): delivery of heads-up alerts you have turned on. Browser notifications are encrypted so the delivery service cannot read them.

4. Children's privacy

Our services are not intended for children under 13 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

5. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, export or delete the information we hold about you, to object to or restrict its processing, and to withdraw consent. Location data is collected only with the permission you grant your device, and you can withdraw that permission at any time in your device settings; Alpha can be switched off at any time in Settings.

To make a request, use our data deletion page or contact us at the address below. Where a request concerns Alpha observations, tell us the email address on your account, or the approximate time and place of the reports if you filed them without an account, so that we can identify them.

6. Changes to this policy

We will update this page when what we collect changes, and we will change the date at the top when we do.

7. Contact us

If you have any questions or concerns about this policy, please contact us at support@weathervibe.app.