Privacy Policy

Overview

NOAA Weather (Unofficial) is a free, independent app that displays publicly available weather data from the U.S. National Weather Service (weather.gov). It is not affiliated with or endorsed by NOAA, the NWS, or any U.S. government agency.

Your privacy matters. This policy explains what information is accessed, how it is used, and what is never collected or shared.

Information We Access

Location data — The app may request access to your device's location solely to display weather forecasts relevant to your current area. For ordinary forecast and radar use, location data is sent directly to the NWS public API (api.weather.gov) and is not stored on any server we operate.

If you enable push notifications, your active location is additionally sent to and stored by the NOAA Alert Relay (see the “Push Notifications” section below). The relay does not retain location history — only your current active location is kept while notifications are enabled.

You can deny location permission at any time in your device settings. The app will continue to work for any manually entered location.

Push Notifications

Push notifications are opt-in. If you enable them, the app sends the following to the NOAA Alert Relay, a small server we operate at noaa-alert-relay.nelsok.workers.dev (hosted on Cloudflare Workers):

• Your APNs device token, a per-install identifier issued by Apple that lets us deliver pushes to this device.
• The latitude and longitude of your active location.
• Your severity filter preference (which alert tiers should trigger a push, e.g. severe or extreme).

The relay periodically polls the NWS public API for active alerts, checks whether any cover your active location, and sends a push through Apple's APNs service for matching severe or extreme alerts. The relay does not collect your name, email, IP-based identity, or any data linked to a user account.

Retention. Only the current active location is stored — the relay does not keep location history. Your record is removed automatically when Apple reports your device token as unregistered (for example, if you uninstall the app or disable notifications), or when you turn off notifications in the app's settings.

Opt-out. Disable notifications in iOS Settings → Weather Unofficial → Notifications, or toggle the in-app notifications switch off.

Information We Do Not Collect

• We do not collect your name, email address, or any personal identifiers.
• We do not use advertising networks or third-party analytics SDKs.
• We do not sell, rent, or share any data with third parties.
• We do not use cookies or persistent tracking technologies.
• We do not retain a history of your locations or searches.

Third-Party Services

The app fetches weather data primarily from the National Weather Service public API (api.weather.gov), a free U.S. government service whose privacy practices are governed by NOAA.

The app also makes network requests to the following public services to render maps, satellite imagery, and location search:

• NOAA RIDGE2 (opengeo.ncep.noaa.gov) — NEXRAD radar imagery
• NASA GIBS / Earthdata (gibs.earthdata.nasa.gov) — GOES satellite imagery
• OpenStreetMap / Nominatim (nominatim.openstreetmap.org) — location search
• OpenStreetMap tiles (tile.openstreetmap.org) — map base layer

When push notifications are enabled, the app additionally communicates with the NOAA Alert Relay we operate at noaa-alert-relay.nelsok.workers.dev, hosted on Cloudflare Workers. See the “Push Notifications” section above for details on what is sent and stored. Cloudflare may process this traffic in accordance with its own privacy practices.

No advertising, analytics, or third-party SDKs are used.

Children's Privacy

This app does not knowingly collect any information from children under the age of 13. Because no personal data is collected by the app at all, it is safe for use by all ages.

Changes to This Policy

If this privacy policy changes, the updated version will be posted at this URL with a revised effective date. Continued use of the app after any changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

Contact

Questions or concerns about this privacy policy can be directed to: nelsokdev@gmail.com