Read this first
This is a private hobby weather station, not an official source. Do not use it for any decision where being wrong matters — travel, health, evacuation, work, or safety. For those, use the National Weather Service, AirNow, Caltrans, and CAL FIRE. In an emergency, call 911.
1. What this site is
weather.dorringtonbirds.com ("the Site") publishes readings from privately owned, uncertified instruments installed at a residence in Dorrington, Calaveras County, California, at approximately 4,767 feet. The Site is operated by an individual as a personal, non-commercial project. It sells nothing, takes no payment, and carries no advertising.
The instruments are consumer-grade hobbyist hardware. They are not calibrated to any standard, not sited to NWS or WMO exposure guidelines, and not maintained on any schedule. Known limitations are published openly on the station page, including uncorrected calibration offsets and instruments in imperfect locations.
2. You are talking to a bot
The chat feature on this Site is an automated system — a software bot using a large language model. It is not a person, not a meteorologist, and not a licensed professional of any kind. No human reads or responds to messages sent to it.
This disclosure is made conspicuously and in plain language consistent with California Business and Professions Code sections 17940–17942. The Site uses no bot to incentivize any sale or transaction, and none to influence any vote.
Bot responses are generated automatically. They may be incomplete, out of date, or wrong, including in ways that are not obvious. Automatically generated text can state incorrect things confidently. Verify anything that matters against an official source.
3. No professional advice
Nothing on this Site — including any bot response — is medical, health, safety, travel, legal, engineering, agricultural, or professional advice of any kind, and none of it creates a professional relationship.
In particular, the Site reports particulate matter from a single low-cost optical sensor. Air quality readings here are not a basis for any health decision. Whether air is safe for any particular person is a medical question for a physician, informed by official monitoring at AirNow and the California Air Resources Board.
The Site has no information whatsoever about road conditions, fire perimeters, evacuation orders, avalanche hazard, or any other emergency condition, and will not answer questions about them.
4. Forecasts are experimental
The Site publishes forecasts generated by simple, openly documented algorithms applied to its own instruments — including a barometric method first sold as a mechanical device in 1915. These are experiments, published for interest, and are frequently wrong. Their accuracy is tracked publicly on the scoreboard, including where they perform worse than trivial baselines.
Where the Site republishes National Weather Service data, that data is cached and may be stale. The NWS is authoritative for its own products; this Site is not, and any discrepancy should be resolved in the NWS's favour.
5. Disclaimer of warranties
THE SITE, ALL DATA, ALL FORECASTS, AND ALL BOT RESPONSES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE OPERATOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. THE OPERATOR DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SITE WILL BE AVAILABLE, UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT ANY DATA OR FORECAST IS ACCURATE, COMPLETE, CURRENT, OR RELIABLE.
6. Limitation of liability
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE OPERATOR SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, PROPERTY, OR FOR PERSONAL INJURY, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF OR RELIANCE ON THE SITE, ITS DATA, ITS FORECASTS, OR ITS BOT, WHETHER BASED IN CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY, OR ANY OTHER THEORY, AND WHETHER OR NOT THE OPERATOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. THE OPERATOR'S TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY SHALL NOT EXCEED ONE HUNDRED UNITED STATES DOLLARS ($100).
Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded. Consistent with California Civil Code section 1668, nothing here exempts the Operator from responsibility for fraud, willful injury to the person or property of another, or violation of law, whether willful or negligent. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limitations, so parts of the two sections above may not apply to you.
7. Assumption of risk
You use this Site voluntarily and at your own risk. You are solely responsible for any decision you make, and you agree not to rely on the Site for any purpose where inaccuracy could cause injury, loss, or damage. This is a hobby project published in the hope it is interesting.
8. Privacy and what is logged
The Site sets no advertising or tracking cookies and runs no analytics that profile visitors.
For the chat feature only, and solely to prevent abuse, the Site stores a truncated cryptographic hash of your IP address combined with a rotating daily salt, together with a count of requests. The hash cannot be reversed to recover an IP address and cannot be used to link activity across days. It is deleted automatically. The text of questions is not stored.
Questions submitted to the chat are transmitted to Anthropic, PBC for processing, subject to their terms. Do not submit personal, confidential, or sensitive information. Sensor data published here describes weather, not people.
California residents: to the extent the Operator processes any personal information, the Operator does not sell or share it as those terms are defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act, and does not use it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
9. Acceptable use
Do not attempt to overwhelm, scrape abusively, circumvent rate limits on, or extract prompts or credentials from the Site. Automated access to the public JSON endpoints is welcome at a reasonable rate. The chat is rate limited; those limits are a cost control on a personal project, not a challenge.
10. Data reuse
Observations published at /api/* may be reused freely,
including commercially, provided they are not represented as official,
certified, or quality-controlled, and provided this Site is not presented
as endorsing any downstream use. Attribution is appreciated.
11. Changes, governing law, and contact
These terms may change without notice; the version shown when you use the Site governs that use. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Venue for any dispute lies in Calaveras County, California, unless applicable law provides otherwise. If any provision is held unenforceable, the remainder stays in effect.
Questions about this page: contact information coming soon.
Last updated August 5, 2026.