Privacy policy

What stays on your device

The last ZIP code and school district you checked are saved in your browser's local storage so the page opens on your result next time. They are not sent to us. Clearing your browser's site data removes them.

When a ZIP you checked shows a 40% or higher chance of closing, the page also keeps that night's estimate (ZIP, district, date and chance) on your device, so it can ask you the next morning whether school actually closed. It keeps the last five and is never sent to us unless you answer. Your "Adjust for your school" choices are kept the same way and never sent.

If you search by city or school district name, the page downloads one list of all place and district names and searches it on your device, so we never see what you typed.

Forecast lookups

When you check a ZIP code, your browser downloads the forecast file for the first three digits of that ZIP from our servers (so the server sees the 3-digit area, not your full ZIP). We don't keep a log of lookups.

"Use my location"

If you allow it, your browser's location is used on your device to find the nearest ZIP code. To do that, the page downloads the list of ZIP codes for the 1-degree area you are in (roughly 70 by 50 miles), so our servers can see that general area, never your exact coordinates. We never locate visitors by IP address.

Storm alerts

If you turn on storm alerts, your browser gives us a push subscription: an address at your browser's push service (Google, Mozilla, Apple or Microsoft) plus two keys that let us encrypt a message for that browser. We store it with the ZIP code, school district and alert threshold you chose, and the date of the last alert we sent, so we can send at most one alert per evening. We don't get your name, email or phone number. Turning alerts off on that page deletes the subscription; we also delete it when the push service tells us it no longer works. The page also remembers your district and threshold in your browser's local storage, so it can show that alerts are on.

The snow day widget on other websites

When a school or community site shows our snow day widget, your browser loads it from our servers like any of our pages: our host sees standard request data, including which page it was loaded on. The widget's ZIP code and district are in the part of the address after "#", which browsers don't send. The widget sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device.

Outcome reports

If you report whether school closed, we store the ZIP code, school district, date and outcome you choose, plus a random report key your browser makes for that day and district so that, if you change your answer, the new one replaces the old one. The key is kept on your device for about ten days, is never reused for another day and isn't linked to you. We don't ask for your name or email. Reports are used only to measure and improve the calculator and may be published in aggregate (for example, "120 reports from Buffalo on January 20"). On the day itself, the result card can show how many people reported each outcome for a district, once at least three have.

Hosting and analytics

The site is hosted on Cloudflare, which processes standard request data (such as IP address and browser type) to deliver pages and protect against abuse. We count visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which sets no cookies and doesn't identify you: it records the page, the referring site, the country and the browser type.

Advertising

The site does not show ads yet. If we add them, this page will be updated first, and visitors in regions that require it will be asked for consent before any advertising cookies are used.

Children

The site is a general-audience tool. We don't knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children.

Contact

Questions about privacy: contact@snow-day-calculator.org.