This Privacy Policy explains how NWSAlerts.net handles information when you use this website or the NWSAlerts desktop app. This site is an independent dashboard and is not affiliated with NOAA, the NWS, or any U.S. Government agency.
This site does not require you to create an account and does not intentionally collect personal information such as your name, address, or phone number.
However, like most websites, basic technical information may be logged by the hosting provider and standard web infrastructure:
This data is not sold or shared with third parties for advertising purposes.
This website stores your preferences in your browser using local browser storage (not cookies). This includes settings such as selected alert types, sound and voice preferences, map options, and filter configuration. These settings remain on your device and are never transmitted to our servers. You can clear them at any time by clearing your browser's local storage.
The NWSAlerts Windows desktop app connects to NWSAlerts.net to display live alert data. The app does not collect or transmit personal information beyond what the web dashboard does (see Section 2). Desktop notification preferences are stored locally on your device.
The app checks for updates via an auto-updater. Update checks connect to GitHub Releases and may transmit your IP address and app version to GitHub's servers, subject to GitHub's privacy policy.
Site administrators may configure a webhook URL to receive notifications for new alerts. When enabled, the server will send alert data (event name, severity, area, headline) as an HTTP POST request to the configured external URL. No user data is included in webhook payloads. Webhook configuration is an admin-only feature and is not accessible to regular visitors.
This site does not set advertising or tracking cookies. An admin session cookie is set only when an administrator logs in to the admin panel. No cookies are set for regular visitors.
The dashboard fetches weather data from several government and third-party sources on the server side (your browser does not contact these services directly). These include NOAA/NWS APIs, the Storm Prediction Center, the National Hurricane Center, the Weather Prediction Center, Iowa State University IEM (storm reports, radar, and mesoscale discussion polygons), and NASA FIRMS (active fire detections). Map tiles are served by OpenStreetMap and CartoDB.
Static reference data for the Impacts tab (population, housing, infrastructure counts, and flood history) is pre-processed from the U.S. Census Bureau (2020 Census and 2022 ACS), Census County Business Patterns, the USACE National Inventory of Dams, and FEMA OpenFEMA. This data is bundled as static files and does not involve real-time requests to those services when you use the app. See our Data Source Attribution page for the full list.
We take reasonable measures to protect this service, but no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure. Do not submit sensitive personal information through this site.
This site is not directed at children under 13 and does not knowingly collect personal information from children.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Updates will be posted on this page with a new "Last Updated" date.
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, you can reach us at contact@nwsalerts.net.