Stormline Weather — Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 12, 2026

Stormline Weather is built by Northbaseworks, LLC ("Northbaseworks," "we," "us"). This policy explains what information Stormline Weather collects on iPhone, iPad and Android, how it is used, who processes it, and what choices you have. Where the iOS and Android apps behave differently, this policy says so.

The short version

Stormline Weather works without an account. To show a forecast, radar and alerts, the app sends the coordinates of the place you are looking at to our servers, which pass them to weather data providers. An account (Sign in with Apple, or Google on Android) is optional; it stores an opaque identifier from Apple or Google, never your email address or name, and is used to sync your settings and saved places and to unlock optional features. Lightning alerts or severe weather alerts, if you turn them on, register a random device identifier, a push notification token and your chosen place or places with our lightning service. The apps also send crash and performance diagnostics, tied to a random install identifier and not to your account, unless you turn that off in Settings. We do not show ads, we do not use advertising identifiers or third-party analytics or crash-reporting SDKs, and we do not sell your data.

Location

Stormline Weather uses location to show the forecast, radar and lightning for where you are. You can also skip location entirely and search for and save places instead.

• Forecast and alerts. The app sends the coordinates of the place being shown (your current location or a saved place) to our Worker service at api.northbaseworks.net. On iPhone and iPad the app asks the system for approximate (about one kilometre) accuracy, and on Android the app can only hold approximate location. On both platforms the app rounds the coordinates to two decimal places (about 1 km) before sending, and our service rounds them again when it receives them, before using them for anything. Our service forwards the rounded coordinates to Apple WeatherKit for the forecast, and to the US National Weather Service (United States) or Environment and Climate Change Canada (Canada) to look up weather alerts. We do not keep a history of the coordinates you request. To reduce repeat lookups, our service temporarily caches each forecast under a location key rounded to about 1 km: a cached forecast is used as current for 10 minutes and is kept for up to about 70 minutes as a fallback if the weather provider is unavailable. Weather alerts are cached for 2 minutes under the same kind of key. The caches hold the forecast and alerts, not information about you. The coordinates our service forwards to Apple WeatherKit and the alert providers are the rounded ones, so a forecast or alert is for the centre of a roughly one-kilometre cell around your place.
• Home Screen widget (iPhone and iPad). The widget and the app's background refresh request the forecast from the same service using the last known coordinates, rounded to two decimal places.
• Place names. On iPhone and iPad, your device asks Apple to turn your current coordinates into a place name, and when you search for a place to add, the text you type is sent directly from your device to Apple's place search service. Versions of the iPhone and iPad app before 1.2.3 sent that text to the Open-Meteo geocoding service instead. On Android, place search and place names use the geocoding service built into your device. We do not receive or store what you type.
• Radar. The radar map requests map tiles from our service, which retrieves them from Environment and Climate Change Canada and caches them briefly. These requests identify map tiles, not your coordinates.

iOS

Stormline Weather asks for "While Using the App" location first. Once you have answered that, in the same first-run flow, the app asks once for "Always" (iOS shows its own prompt); this is optional and the app is fully usable without it. If you choose Always, the Home Screen widget and your lightning and severe weather alerts (if you have turned them on) can follow you while the app is closed. The app uses iOS significant-location-change monitoring for this, not continuous tracking. If you decline, you can change the setting in iOS Settings at any time.

Android

Stormline Weather asks for approximate (coarse) location only; it does not request precise location. Background location ("Allow all the time") is a separate, optional permission that is used only for Follow my location, which keeps your lightning and severe weather alerts with you as you travel. The app asks for it only when you turn on lightning alerts or severe weather alerts (or turn on Follow my location in Settings), and only after an in-app explanation that you accept; it is never requested when you install or open the app. If you decline, your alerts stay on for your saved places (or, if you have none saved, for the place where you last opened the app) and do not follow you as you travel; you can turn on Follow my location in Settings at any time. When it is on, about once an hour, even when the app is closed, a background job takes one approximate location reading, and your alert location is updated only after you move about 10 kilometres or about once a week. You can turn Follow my location off in Settings, or remove the permission in Android settings, at any time.

Lightning map and alerts

Lightning data comes from NOAA's GOES-19 satellite lightning mapper. We process it in a lightning service we run on Google Cloud (Cloud Run and Firestore).

• Viewing lightning. When the lightning map or lightning row is shown, the app sends the centre of the area being viewed, a radius and a time window to our Worker service, which rounds the coordinates to two decimals and passes the request to the lightning service. Our Worker service keeps recent answers for nearby areas for 120 seconds, under the rounded coordinates; these are shared by all devices and are not linked to you. Older app versions contact the lightning service directly, so it sees your IP address and the unrounded centre; we do not store log lines for these map requests (see below). The request does not carry a device identifier. The service notes which one-degree map cells were viewed so that it records strikes for them; those marks expire after 6 hours and are not linked to you.
• Lightning and severe weather alerts (optional). To send you a push notification when lightning is near, or when a severe weather warning (or a watch or strong storm statement, if you choose them) is issued for one of your places, the app registers your device with the service. On both iPhone/iPad and Android, Lightning Alerts and Severe Weather Alerts are off until you turn them on in the app, and the app does not ask for notification permission until you do. Until you turn them on, the app does not send your device's push notification token or any of your places to our servers or to the lightning service. (Your device's operating system, and the Google Firebase Cloud Messaging component the app includes, may still obtain a push token for the app on the device when the app starts; that token stays on the device and is not sent to us until you turn Lightning Alerts or Severe Weather Alerts on.) When you turn them on, the app asks for notification permission and then registers the device, and you can switch them off in Settings at any time; when both are off, the registration is removed. The registration contains a random device identifier the app generates (not your account), your device's push notification token, your alert radius, and one or more places (coordinates plus the place's name, if it has one). On iPhone and iPad the app registers your home place, or your first saved place if none is marked as home, at the precision it was saved. On Android it registers each of your saved places, with coordinates rounded to two decimals. The service uses these records only to match nearby lightning and, if you turned on severe weather alerts, official severe weather warnings for your places (and, if you choose them, watches and, in the U.S., National Weather Service statements about strong storms), and to send an alert through Firebase Cloud Messaging (and Apple's push service on iOS); the name of the place is included in the notification text, so it passes through those services. To avoid repeating an alert or sending alerts too often, the service also keeps a small record tied to the same random device identifier (which alerts it already sent, and when; no push token or places), which is deleted automatically about a week after it was last used.
• Severe weather lookups. The first time a place is used for severe weather alerts, our service sends that place's coordinates, rounded to two decimals, to the US National Weather Service to find its state and forecast zone (places in northern Canada use only one-degree area boxes with Environment and Climate Change Canada). The answer is kept under the rounded coordinates for about 90 days, is shared by all devices and is not linked to your device.
• Follow my location (optional). If you turn this on, your current position is also registered, reduced on the device and again by the service to a grid of about 5 kilometres. It is re-registered only after you move about 10 kilometres, or about once a week. The service keeps only the latest such position for your device, replacing the previous one; it does not keep a history of where you have been.
• Expiry and removal. A lightning registration is removed when you turn both Lightning Alerts and Severe Weather Alerts off in the app. Otherwise it expires on its own about 30 days after the app last contacted the service. While alerts are on, the app renews the registration when you open it, and Android can also renew it in the background (when Follow my location is on, or when its push token changes). If you don't open the app for about 30 days, alerts may stop until you open it again. The record belongs to the device, not to an account: signing out does not remove it, and deleting your account on the web page (Android) does not remove it. To remove it, turn the alerts off in the app, or uninstall the app and let it expire.

Optional account and sync

You can sign in with Sign in with Apple (iPhone and iPad) or Google (Android). Stormline Weather does not request your email address or name. Our service receives a signed token from Apple or Google, verifies it, and stores only the platform and the opaque user identifier the provider assigns, in a database at Cloudflare (Cloudflare D1).

• Synced settings and saved places. While you are signed in, your units and other preferences, and your saved places (their names, coordinates and which is your home), are stored with your account so your devices can share them.
• Sessions. Each sign-in creates a random session token. The token itself is kept only on your device; our server stores a one-way hash of it, with the platform and the session's creation and last-use times, so the token cannot be read back from our database. A session ends after 90 days without use (and in any case 365 days after you signed in), when you sign out, or when you delete your account. Signing out removes the token from your device, leaves your local settings in place, and asks our server to delete that session; if the app cannot reach the server at that moment (for example you are offline), the sign-out still happens on your device and the server-side record ends on its own as above.
• AI summary usage. For each account we keep a count of AI summaries used (see below), including a per-day count. We also keep a short record of each AI summary request, tied to an internal account number: the time, platform, summary type, whether it was served from cache or generated or refused, the amount of text processed (token counts) and a modelled cost. It contains no location and no summary text. These records are kept for 90 days; after that we keep only daily totals that are not linked to any account. To apply the daily limit on how many different areas get summaries, we also keep, for each account, a one-way code for each area of about 11 km you asked about that day; these codes are deleted after about a day.
• Subscription status. If you subscribe, we store the plan, its status and expiry, and Apple's original transaction identifier (iPhone and iPad) or the Google Play purchase token (Android) against your account (see Subscriptions and purchases).

AI weather summaries

Signed-in users can request short written summaries of today's, tomorrow's or this week's weather. To generate one, the app sends the coordinates of the place you are viewing to our service (rounded to two decimal places by the app on both iPhone/iPad and Android, and again by our service), and the service looks up the forecast for that place and sends only the forecast values (for example temperatures, precipitation, wind and times) to Anthropic's API, which runs Anthropic's Claude model. The coordinates, the place name and any account identifier are not included in what is sent to Anthropic. According to Anthropic's published policy (checked October 3, 2026), inputs and outputs from its commercial products are deleted from its systems within 30 days (longer only if they are flagged as violating its usage policy), and are not used to train its models by default. The generated text is cached briefly (about 3 hours) under a location key rounded to about 11 kilometres and may be shown to other people viewing the same area and period; it is not tied to your account. Summaries are optional; the rest of the app does not depend on them. The AI summary feature is available in both the iOS and Android apps. We keep a count of summaries used for each account (see Optional account and sync).

Subscriptions and purchases

Stormline Weather Pro is an optional auto-renewing subscription (monthly or annual), sold in the iOS app through the Apple App Store and in the Android app through Google Play. Apple or Google handles payment, and Northbaseworks never receives or stores your payment details. You need to be signed in to subscribe.

iPhone and iPad. When you subscribe or restore a purchase while signed in, the app sends Apple's original transaction identifier to our service, which asks Apple's App Store Server API whether the subscription is active and stores the result (plan, status, expiry date, the transaction identifier and whether it was a sandbox or production purchase) on your account. To make sure one purchase unlocks one account, the service creates a random identifier for your Stormline account (not derived from your Apple ID, sign-in identifier or other personal data) and the app attaches it to the purchase, so Apple receives it with the transaction.

Android. When you subscribe or restore a purchase while signed in, and when the app checks your subscription at launch, the app sends the Google Play purchase token and the plan to our service, which asks the Google Play Developer API whether the subscription is active, acknowledges a new purchase with Google, and stores the result (plan, status, expiry date, the purchase token and whether it was a test or production purchase) on your account. To make sure one purchase unlocks one account, the app attaches an account identifier to the purchase, so Google receives it with the transaction. That identifier is a one-way hash of your internal Stormline account number; it is not derived from your Google account, sign-in identifier or other personal data.

We also receive server-to-server notifications from Apple and Google about your subscription (for example renewal, expiry or refund), and we keep a record of each one: its identifier, type, product, Apple's original transaction identifier or a one-way hash of the Google Play purchase token (never the token itself), the status after the notification, and your internal account number if we can match it. These records are kept until you delete your account; records we cannot match to an account have no automatic expiry.

Support requests

You can contact support from the app (Settings, then Report a problem or Send feedback) or from the support page on this website. This is optional.

• What we receive. The message you write (up to 2,000 characters; we automatically remove anything that looks like coordinates or a long access token), the category or topic you pick, your device type (iPhone/iPad, Android or "not sure"), the app version when you write from the app, the time, a reference number (such as T-7K3M9Q) and your support ID. Please don't put passwords or payment details in a message.
• Email is optional. If you give an email address we use it only to reply to you; it is kept only on that message. We never ask for your name.
• Device information from the app. The app can attach basic device information: operating-system version, app version and build, device model, language, whether you are signed in, your subscription state (free, Pro or inactive) and whether location permission is allowed. It never includes your location, your saved places, tokens or other identifiers. The switch is on by default, the app shows exactly what will be sent before you send it, and you can turn it off.
• Support ID. If you are signed in, the app shows an account support ID (STM-XXXX-XXXX), a random code our server makes for your account. It is not derived from your Apple or Google identifier, email or any other information, and it is deleted with your account. If you are signed out, the app makes its own random code (STI-XXXX-XXXX) on your device, which is kept only on that device and is not linked to you (on iPhone it can survive reinstalling the app). Sharing the ID helps us find your messages and your account's usage limits without asking for personal details.
• Who sees it. Only authorised Northbaseworks staff, in a private support console. We use messages only to answer you and to improve the app, and we record staff actions on a message or an account's limits in an audit log.
• Website form protection. The form on the support page uses Cloudflare Turnstile to block automated abuse. Turnstile runs in your browser and Cloudflare receives your IP address and browser signals under its own privacy terms; our server sends Cloudflare the check token and your IP address to verify it. The form also has a hidden field and a minimum fill time to catch bots. We do not store your IP address with a message; to limit how many messages one network can send we keep counters keyed by a one-way hash of the IP address, deleted within about two days.
• How long, and deleting. Support messages are kept for 12 months and then deleted automatically. Deleting your account deletes the support messages linked to it. Messages sent while signed out, or from the website, are not linked to a person; to have one deleted, use the contact form on the Support page and include its reference number or support ID.

What we don't collect

• No advertising, and no advertising identifiers or third-party ad tracking.
• No third-party analytics or crash-reporting SDKs in the iOS or Android apps. The only Google Firebase component the apps include is Cloud Messaging, for lightning and severe weather alert notifications. Crash and performance diagnostics (see Logs and diagnostics) use Apple's MetricKit on iPhone and iPad and Android's built-in exit-reason reports; both are operating-system features, not third-party SDKs, and the reports go to our own service.
• No email address or name, from account sign-in or otherwise, unless you choose to give us an email address when you contact support (see Support requests).
• No access to your contacts, photos or microphone.
• No sale of your data.

Third-party service providers

Stormline Weather relies on these providers to function:

• Apple — WeatherKit (forecasts), Sign in with Apple, the App Store and StoreKit, the App Store Server API, push notifications (APNs), and place-name lookup and place search on iPhone and iPad.
• Environment and Climate Change Canada — radar imagery and Canadian weather alerts.
• US National Weather Service — United States weather alerts.
• NOAA — GOES-19 Geostationary Lightning Mapper data, processed by our own lightning service. No user data is sent to NOAA.
• Anthropic — generates AI weather summaries from forecast values, as described above.
• Cloudflare — hosts our Worker service, database (D1), key-value cache and edge cache, and this website, and provides Turnstile, the bot check on the website's support form (see Support requests).
• Open-Meteo — place-name search in iPhone and iPad app versions before 1.2.3 only. Current versions do not contact it.
• Google — Google Cloud (Cloud Run and Firestore for lightning), Firebase Cloud Messaging for alert notifications on both platforms, and on Android Google Sign-In, Google Play Billing and the Google Play Developer API for subscriptions (with subscription notifications delivered through Google Cloud Pub/Sub), Google Maps for the lightning map, and Android's geocoding service.

Our service and these providers may process data in the United States and other countries.

Logs and diagnostics

Crash and performance diagnostics

To find and fix crashes and performance problems, the apps send diagnostic reports to our service. This is on by default and you can turn it off at any time in Settings (the switch is called "Share crash and performance diagnostics").

• What is sent. On iPhone and iPad, the reports Apple's MetricKit framework produces for the app (crash, hang, CPU and disk-write diagnostics and usage metrics, including call stacks and device and operating-system details such as device model, OS version and app version). On Android, the operating system's record of why the app last exited (for example a crash, a not-responding event, or low memory), including memory figures, a short operating-system description, and the stack trace of a crash or not-responding event, plus the Android version and app version. In both cases the report also carries a random install identifier. Crash stack traces can contain the text of an error message.
• What is not sent with it. No sign-in session or account identifier is sent with a diagnostic report, and the report is not linked to your account. The apps do not add your location or the places you saved to a report. The install identifier is generated by the app on first use; it is separate from your lightning device identifier and from your account.
• Sampling and controls. We can switch diagnostics off remotely or collect them from only a share of installs; unless we change that setting, all installs that have the switch on are included. Turning the switch off stops collection and deletes reports that were waiting on your device to be sent.
• Retention. Reports are kept on our servers for 90 days. Because they are tied to the install identifier and not to your account, deleting your account does not delete them.
• Backups. The install identifier is stored in the app's ordinary storage. On iPhone and iPad, if you back up your device (iCloud or a computer), the identifier can be restored to a new device. On Android, the install identifier, your sign-in session and your lightning device identifier are excluded from Android backup and device-to-device transfer, so they are not restored to a new device (you sign in again, and Lightning Alerts and Severe Weather Alerts are off until you turn them on); your saved places and settings are restored so you do not lose them. The install identifier is not reset when you sign out or delete your account.

Server logs and rate limiting

Our Worker service runs on Cloudflare. Its diagnostic logs (the operational messages our own code writes, described below) are kept by Cloudflare for 7 days. We have turned off Cloudflare's per-request invocation logs, which would otherwise record the requested URL (for forecast requests, that URL contains coordinates), and our code removes coordinates from the messages it writes. Our lightning service runs on Google Cloud, which keeps its request logs for 14 days. We do not store log lines for lightning map requests, so these logs do not hold the coordinates of the area being viewed. Logs of other requests, such as a device registering for alerts, include the requested address, the time and the IP address of the request. For current app versions those requests come from our Worker service, so the logs show Cloudflare's address, not yours; older versions contact the service directly, so the logs can show your IP address. Cloudflare and Google also keep their own infrastructure logs under their own policies, which we do not control. We use logs to operate, debug and secure the service. Our own code additionally records a small number of operational events, such as radar upstream errors, rate-limit events (which include a shortened form of the requesting IP address) and the fact that an account was deleted (without any identifier). A few events (for example when an AI summary fails, or when a subscription is checked or a store notification is processed) include the internal account number. We also keep an operations log of event types and counts (for example "verification failed"), with no IP address, location or account number, for 90 days. To limit abuse we keep short-lived request counters keyed by IP address: most are held in memory; the web account-deletion page's counter is a cache entry that expires within about two hours; counters for a restricted-access feature are database rows, keyed by a one-way hash of the IP address, that expire within about thirty minutes; and when you sign in we keep, for about one to two hours, a counter keyed by a one-way hash of your sign-in identifier, to stop a stolen token being replayed. Support requests (see Support requests) use counters keyed by a one-way hash of the IP address, kept as database rows for up to two days, and the website support form is checked with Cloudflare Turnstile. Attempts to use that restricted-access feature are also logged with a shortened form of the IP address (its network prefix, not the full address) and the device or browser identification string, and that log is deleted after 30 days.

The iPhone and iPad app also keeps a short log on your device (about the last 1,000 lines, which can include the coordinates used for forecast requests). It is not sent to us and cannot be shared from the app; it is included in device backups. We do not use these logs or any other data to build advertising profiles.

How long data is kept

• Forecast cache. Used as current for 10 minutes; kept up to about 70 minutes as a fallback.
• Alerts cache. 2 minutes.
• AI summary cache. About 3 hours.
• Radar tiles. Cached for up to about 5 hours.
• Lightning strike data. About 25 hours.
• Lightning "viewed area" marks. 6 hours.
• Lightning device registrations. About 30 days after the last registration, or sooner if you turn both Lightning Alerts and Severe Weather Alerts off.
• Alert-sent records. About 7 days after last use.
• Severe weather zone lookups. About 90 days (kept by rounded place, not linked to a device).
• Account data (account identifier, synced settings and saved places, AI summary counters, subscription status and subscription notification records). Until you delete your account.
• Sessions. Until you sign out, after 90 days without use, or 365 days after sign-in, whichever comes first (and removed when you delete your account).
• AI summary request records. 90 days (and removed when you delete your account). After that only daily totals that are not linked to any account are kept.
• Forecast values sent to Anthropic for summaries. Deleted by Anthropic within 30 days, per its published policy (see AI weather summaries).
• Usage record kept after account deletion. 365 days, then removed in routine clean-up during sign-ins (see below).
• Crash and performance diagnostics. 90 days.
• Support messages (text, optional email, device information, support ID, reference number, and the staff audit log of actions on them). 12 months, then deleted automatically; messages linked to an account are also deleted with the account (see Support requests).
• Operations log (event types and counts, no personal data). 90 days.
• Restricted-access attempt log (shortened IP address and device or browser string). 30 days.
• Backups. After you delete your account, copies in our hosting provider's rolling database backups can persist for up to 30 days and are not used to restore deleted accounts.
• Worker diagnostic logs (Cloudflare). 7 days.
• Lightning service request logs (Google Cloud). 14 days. Map requests are not stored in these logs.
• Other logs. Cloudflare and Google keep their own infrastructure logs under their own policies.

What we keep after you delete your account. To stop "delete the account and sign in again" from resetting the free AI summary allowance and daily limit, deleting an account leaves one small record: a one-way hash of your sign-in identifier (computed with a secret key we hold, so it is not the identifier itself and we do not store the identifier), the number of AI summaries you used, and the date and count of your last day of use. It contains no email address, name, places, sessions or subscription data. We keep it for 365 days; after that it stops counting and is removed in routine clean-up during sign-ins (and whenever an account is deleted), typically within one sign-in of its expiry. We do not run a scheduled job for this, so removal depends on sign-ins happening and is not tied to a calendar date. If you sign in again with the same Apple or Google account during that time, the counts are applied to the new account and the record is deleted. Diagnostic reports, the operations log and the restricted-access attempt log are also not removed when you delete your account because they are not tied to it.

Your choices and deleting your data

• Location. Change or withdraw location permission at any time in iOS Settings or Android settings. The app also works from places you search for and save.
• Notifications and alerts. Turn Lightning Alerts and Severe Weather Alerts off in the app's Settings, or in your device's notification settings. On Android you can also turn Follow my location off, and remove "Allow all the time" in Android settings.
• Sign out. Signing out stops syncing and keeps your settings and saved places on your device. It does not delete your account and does not turn off Lightning Alerts or Severe Weather Alerts. It asks our server to end that sign-in session; if you are offline at that moment, the server-side session record ends on its own after at most 90 days without use.
• Delete your account. On iPhone and iPad, go to Settings, then Delete Account in the app. For accounts created with Google (Android), use the page at northbaseworks.com/stormline/delete-account, which does not require the app. Deleting removes your account record (including your synced settings and saved places and subscription fields), all your sign-in sessions, your AI summary usage counters and AI summary request records, the subscription notification records linked to your account, and support messages linked to your account (see Support requests). It leaves the small usage record, diagnostic reports and logs described under How long data is kept. On iPhone and iPad it also unregisters that device's alert registration (lightning and severe weather) and turns Lightning Alerts and Severe Weather Alerts off. The web page cannot reach a device's alert registration; turn Lightning Alerts and Severe Weather Alerts off in the app, or let it expire as described above. Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription: manage it with Apple.
• Subscriptions. Cancel or manage a subscription in your Apple account settings on iPhone and iPad, or in Google Play on Android. Cancelling stops future renewals.
• Diagnostics. Switch off "Share crash and performance diagnostics" in Settings.
• AI summaries. They are optional; you can use the app without them.
• Your rights. Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct or delete personal information we hold about you. Contact us using the information below to make a request.

Children's privacy

Stormline Weather is not intended for children under 13, or under the higher minimum age that applies where you live, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. The apps do not ask for age or date of birth.

Security

The apps communicate with our services over encrypted connections (HTTPS). Session tokens are stored in the iOS Keychain or in Android's encrypted storage, and our server keeps only a one-way hash of each token. We rely on the security practices of our infrastructure providers (Cloudflare, Google) in addition to our own controls. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, and we can't guarantee absolute security.

Changes to this policy

If this policy changes, the "last updated" date above will change and, for material changes, we'll make reasonable efforts to notify users through the app.

Contact

Questions about this policy or Stormline Weather's data practices: use the contact form on the Support page. For help with the app, see Stormline Weather Support. The Terms of Use describe the conditions for using the app.