Privacy Notice

RFDMap is a tornado and severe-weather archive. This notice explains what data the site collects and how it is used. It is provided in good faith; it is not legal advice.

Account information

If you create an account, we store your username, email address, and a securely hashed password. Account settings (map preferences, saved views) are stored against your account so they sync across sessions. You can change your email/username/password or delete your account at any time from Settings. Deleting your account removes your profile, sessions, and settings; discussion posts you authored are retained but attributed to a removed account.

Visit logs

To understand site traffic and protect the service, we log page visits. Each logged page view records:

• the page path and time of the visit;
• your IP address and an approximate location (country / region / city) derived from it;
• your browser's user-agent string and the referring page, if any;
• your account, if you are signed in.

Only ordinary page navigations are logged — API, map-tile, and asset requests are not, and automated crawlers are excluded where detectable. These logs are visible only to site administrators and are used solely for operating, securing, and understanding usage of the site. They are not sold or shared with third parties, and the site uses no third-party advertising or analytics trackers.

Retention

Visit logs are automatically deleted after 180 days. Aggregate counts derived from them (e.g. total views per day) may persist in summary form.

Cookies

We use a single essential cookie to keep you signed in. There are no advertising or tracking cookies.

Map & data sources

Base map tiles are loaded from third-party providers (CARTO, OpenStreetMap, ESRI), which may receive your IP address as part of serving tiles. Tornado data comes from public-domain government sources (NOAA SPC, NCEI, NWS). See About for details.

Contact

Questions about this notice or your data can be raised via the Support page.