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Terms of Service

Last updated: October 2026

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing and using Beyond WX ("the Service"), you accept and agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not use the Service.

2. Description of Service

Beyond WX is a weather information service that presents forecasts, current conditions, alerts, air quality, and severe weather information for locations within the United States.

3. Data Source Disclaimer

Beyond WX presents data from the National Weather Service (NWS), Storm Prediction Center (SPC), Iowa State Mesonet, and AirNow. Interactive map basemaps are provided by CARTO, with OpenStreetMap used as a browser fallback. MCP radar snapshots retrieve NEXRAD tiles server-side from Iowa State Mesonet and, when configured, basemap tiles from CARTO; the server-side renderer does not use OpenStreetMap.

  • Beyond WX is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the National Weather Service, NOAA, or any government agency.
  • Weather data may contain errors, delays, or inaccuracies inherent to the source data.
  • We do not modify, interpret, or enhance the forecast data beyond presentation formatting.
  • For official weather information, please visit weather.gov.

4. No Life-Safety Reliance

Do not rely solely on Beyond WX for life-safety decisions. During severe weather events, always refer to official National Weather Service communications, local emergency management, and NOAA Weather Radio for critical information.

5. Service Provided "As-Is"

The Service is provided on an "as-is" and "as-available" basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to:

  • Accuracy, reliability, or completeness of weather data
  • Uninterrupted or error-free service availability
  • Fitness for any particular purpose
  • Timeliness of data updates

6. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Beyond WX and its operators shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of or inability to use the Service, any errors or omissions in the weather data, decisions made based on information provided by the Service, or any interruption or cessation of the Service.

7. Acceptable Use

You agree not to use the Service for any unlawful purpose, attempt to overwhelm our servers with excessive automated requests, scrape or harvest data in a manner that degrades service for other users, or misrepresent Beyond WX as an official government service.

8. Service Availability

We strive to maintain service availability but do not guarantee uptime. The Service may be temporarily unavailable due to maintenance, NWS API outages, or other factors beyond our control.

9. MCP Server and API Access

Access to the public MCP server at /mcp and the Beyond WX JSON API is provided free, as-is, with no uptime guarantee, for informational use only. It is not a substitute for official NWS warnings. Data comes from the NWS, SPC, Iowa State Mesonet, AirNow, CARTO, and the browser-only OpenStreetMap fallback. For MCP radar snapshots, Beyond WX does not forward the caller's IP address, X-Forwarded-For, or other caller-derived forwarding headers to Iowa State Mesonet or CARTO.

  • Beyond WX may change, rate-limit, suspend, or shut off the MCP server or API at any time, for any reason, without notice.
  • Beyond WX may block or throttle any IP address, client, or user that abuses the service, at its sole discretion. Abuse includes excessive requests, scraping, evading limits, reselling access or data, and harmful use.
  • Beyond WX may require registration, login, and an API key in the future.
  • You must keep the source attribution provided with the data and follow all published or response-provided rate limits.
  • IP addresses and client names are processed for rate limiting and abuse prevention, as described in our Privacy Policy.

Public radar image URLs. Beyond WX also serves current radar PNGs at /radar/{citySlug}.png and /radar.png?lat={latitude}&lon={longitude}. Each returns a 512-pixel PNG of current NEXRAD reflectivity from Iowa State Mesonet over a CARTO basemap (when configured), with nearby NWS severe-warning outlines. Coordinates are rounded to the nearest 0.1° (about 7 miles) before lookup, and images are cached by Beyond WX and served with a 5-minute public cache lifetime (Cache-Control: public, max-age=300), so an image can be up to about 10 minutes old. These URLs share the MCP get_radar limit of 20 radar requests per IP address per hour, and newly rendered (uncached) images are also subject to a site-wide hourly ceiling across all callers; when either limit is reached the URL returns HTTP 429. To estimate storm motion when no nearby NWS warning includes it, Beyond WX fetches the public Iowa State Mesonet NEXRAD storm-attribute feed (nexrad_attr.py) on the server; no caller information is sent with that request.

  • Beyond WX may change, rate-limit, cache differently, suspend, or shut off the public radar image URLs at any time, and may block any IP address or client that abuses them, without notice.
  • Storm card images at /og/storm/{citySlug}.png are 1200x630 PNG previews (current radar, nearby warnings, storm motion, and SPC risk) used for link sharing. They are cached for 5 minutes, count against the same per-IP radar limit and site-wide render ceiling, and redirect to the generic Beyond WX image when a limit is reached. Beyond WX may change, block, or shut them off at any time.

10. Changes to Terms

We reserve the right to modify these terms at any time. Continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance of the new terms.

11. Contact

For questions about these Terms of Service, please contact us through the Beyond WX website.

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