Last updated: July 11, 2026.
BumpySkies offers a free turbulence forecast service that anyone can use without an account. It also offers an optional premium tier, called BumpySkies First Class, with extra features. First Class requires you to sign in with an email address and pay a monthly subscription.
The following privacy policy describes how BumpySkies handles your information across both tiers.
Browsing BumpySkies as a free user is essentially anonymous. There's no need to sign in, and BumpySkies does not require you to share any personally identifying information in order to look up turbulence forecasts.
BumpySkies does use essential logging and analytics tools, including locally stored webserver logs and Google Analytics, in order to profile overall traffic and help me monitor the service's health. These tools collect technical information like IP addresses, browser types, and pages visited. Local webserver logs are automatically rotated and discarded after 14 days.
Subscribing to the newsletter does require you to provide an email address, and my occasional user surveys often include an option to voluntarily share your email for followup contact.
Signing up for BumpySkies First Class requires you to create an account tied to the email address you provide. To support that account, BumpySkies stores the following information:
BumpySkies sets a single first-party cookie of its own: an authentication cookie that holds your sign-in session identifier, set when you log into a BumpySkies account. This cookie is strictly necessary for the First Class features to work: without it, the site can't tell that you're logged in. This cookie expires automatically after 180 days, or sooner if you sign out.
When you browse the site without an account, BumpySkies sets no first-party cookies of its own.
Google Analytics, used as described above, sets its own third-party cookies (typically named _ga and _gid) to recognize unique visitors and measure overall site traffic. You can opt out of Google Analytics in any browser by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on.
If you opt in on your account page and provide a mobile phone number, BumpySkies may send you automated text messages related to your account's pending flight notifications. These messages are limited to operational notifications: alerts that a turbulence forecast is ready for a flight you've asked to be notified about, and occasional account-related status messages (for example, confirming that you've opted in or out of SMS).
BumpySkies does not send marketing or promotional text messages.
Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. To stop receiving text messages from BumpySkies, reply STOP to any message BumpySkies sends. For help, reply HELP, or contact me at jmac@bumpyskies.com.
To deliver text messages, BumpySkies shares your phone number with Twilio, its SMS platform provider, solely so that Twilio can deliver those messages on the service's behalf. No mobile information will be shared with third parties/affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. BumpySkies does not sell, rent, or share your mobile phone number or SMS opt-in information with any other third party for any other purpose.
BumpySkies uses Stripe to process subscription payments. When you subscribe, you enter your payment details directly with Stripe, using a secure form that Stripe embeds on the BumpySkies website. BumpySkies itself never sees or stores your credit card information. Stripe returns a customer identifier and subscription identifier, which BumpySkies stores alongside your account so that the service can recognize your subscription status. For more information about how Stripe handles your data, see Stripe's privacy policy.
BumpySkies uses Mailgun to deliver transactional email, including magic-link sign-in messages and flight forecast notifications. BumpySkies shares your email address with Mailgun solely so that Mailgun can deliver those messages on the service's behalf. Mailgun keeps your email data safe according to its own privacy policy.
BumpySkies uses Buttondown to email an occasional newsletter to users who separately and explicitly request to receive it. If you subscribe to the newsletter, then BumpySkies shares your email address with Buttondown solely to get the newsletter to you. See also the Buttondown privacy policy.
No matter what the future brings for BumpySkies, I pledge that the service will never willingly share, sell, or otherwise expose any personal or sensitive user data to any third parties for marketing purposes, ever. The only third parties BumpySkies shares data with are the operational service providers named above (Stripe, Twilio, Mailgun, Buttondown, and Google Analytics), and only to the extent necessary for them to do their job.
If new BumpySkies features ever require additional user information, I'll update this policy accordingly.
If you have any questions about how BumpySkies handles user data, please get in touch.