Privacy Policy

Effective date: 6 October 2026

Who we are

Tropical Recon (tropicalrecon.com) is a non-commercial website. It shows hurricane reconnaissance data. This includes aircraft tracks, dropsondes, Tail Doppler Radar and related tools. This policy explains what the site learns about you when you use it. It also explains what the site stores in your browser and what happens to anything you give it.

For questions about this policy or your information, contact [email protected] or +1 (913) 954-8844.

The short version

  • There are no accounts, no cookies and no advertising. Nothing is sold or shared for advertising.

  • The web server keeps an ordinary access log, including your IP address, for about 11 days.

  • Your settings, such as theme, units and map layers, are kept in your own browser. They are not kept on our server.

  • A few tools for flight crews are behind a password. What they store is described below.

What the server records when you visit

  • Access log: for each request, it records your IP address, the time, the page or file asked for, the page you came from, and your browser's description of itself (user agent). It's used to keep the site running and to spot abuse. Logs are rotated daily and deleted after about 11 days. Visit counts are made from it. These are visitors and page views every 5 minutes, the most-viewed pages and the sites visitors came from. To count each browser once, a keyed one-way hash of its address and browser description is kept for 35 days. The address itself is never kept for this.
  • Wrong crew passwords: to slow down password guessing, the times of wrong attempts are counted for 15 minutes. They're counted against a one-way hash of your IP address, not the address itself.
  • Cloudflare: the site is served through Cloudflare. Cloudflare carries every request, protects the site from attacks and provides visit counts. The visit counts come from Cloudflare Web Analytics. It uses no cookies and doesn't follow you across sites. See Cloudflare's privacy policy.

What's stored in your browser

The site uses no cookies. It keeps a few things in your browser's own storage so the site works the way you left it. This storage is local storage, IndexedDB and a service worker cache. It stays on your device. The only item ever sent back to us is the crew sign-in. It's sent only when you use a crew tool.

  • Settings: theme, units, map layers, which panels and sections are open, plot layouts, and the addresses you last emailed a logsheet to. They're kept until you change them or clear the site's data.
  • Crew sign-in: after the crew password is entered, a token that keeps this browser signed in for 7 days. It isn't linked to a name or any other information about you.
  • PDF editor documents: logsheets being filled in are saved on your device as you type. That way nothing is lost if the tab closes or the connection drops. They aren't sent anywhere unless you share them. They're removed 21 days after they were last edited.
  • Offline copy of the PDF editor: the editor's own files. They let it open without a connection. No information about you is in it.

All of it is needed for something you chose to do. None of it tracks you. So the site doesn't show a consent banner. Clearing this site's data in your browser's settings removes everything listed here.

Crew tools

Some tools in the Mission Planner are for verified flight crews and need a shared password.

  • Committed flight plans: a plan saved under a NOAA mission ID holds the mission ID, the storm, the pattern and its points, the time it was saved, and any note typed with it. Committed plans are public. Anyone can open them. They're kept until they're deleted. Please don't put personal information in the note.
  • Documents: filled forms saved to Documents with "Save to server" are kept on our server. This includes anything typed on them. They're kept behind the Documents password until the site admin deletes them. The admin can create a public link. Anyone with that link can open that document for 48 hours.
  • Shared logsheets: sharing a filled logsheet uploads the PDF to our server. This includes anything typed on it, such as operator names. Anyone with the link can open it. The file is deleted 48 hours after it was shared.
  • Emailed logsheets: emailing a filled logsheet sends the PDF, the addresses you enter and your message through our server to Google's Gmail. Gmail delivers it from [email protected]. Our server doesn't keep the file or the addresses. The Gmail account's Sent folder keeps a copy of the email. Your browser remembers the last addresses you sent to. It fills them in next time. To limit abuse, the number of emails sent from your connection is counted against a one-way hash of your IP address for an hour. See Google's privacy policy.

A logsheet you only download never reaches our server.

Other services your browser contacts

Pages load the site's fonts from another service. Your browser connects to it directly. So it receives your IP address and browser details. Its own privacy policy applies.

The weather and aircraft data on the site comes from public sources such as NOAA and the National Hurricane Center. Our server fetches it. Your browser doesn't contact those sources. Nothing about you is sent to them.

What we don't do

  • No advertising, ad networks or tracking pixels.

  • No selling or sharing of personal information. No profiles of visitors.

  • No accounts, sign-ups or mailing lists.

  • The site isn't directed at children under 13. We don't knowingly collect their information.

Where information is kept and how it's protected

Our server is in the United States. Connections to the site are encrypted (HTTPS). Logs, committed plans and shared files are only accessible to the site's operator. The exception is what's public by design. Committed plans are public. Shared files are open to anyone holding the link. Crew passwords are stored only as a one-way hash.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you can ask what information we hold about you. You can also ask us to correct or delete it, or to stop using it. Examples are the EU and UK GDPR, and California and other US state privacy laws. We hold very little. In practice, it's access-log lines with your IP address for about 11 days. It's also anything you've committed or shared. Contact [email protected] or +1 (913) 954-8844. We may need details to find the right records, such as your IP address and when you visited. We won't treat you differently for asking.

If you're in the EU or UK and aren't satisfied with our answer, you can complain to your data protection authority.

Changes to this policy

When the site starts collecting or storing something new, this page will be updated. The effective date above will change too.