Editorial Standards

Our Editorial Mission

WeatherByCounty is a data-journalism site. Our job is to take the climate statistics that the federal government already publishes — 30-year temperature averages, precipitation, snowfall, extreme-heat days, growing-season length — and present them in a form that someone planning a move, comparing places to live, or researching climate trends can actually use. We are not a meteorological forecast service. We do not issue severe-weather warnings, and we do not provide real-time forecasts.

Every page on this site is grounded in a primary-source dataset from a U.S. government agency. Where we compute composite scores or rank counties, we publish the underlying formula on our methodology page. Where we draw on AI assistance for prose, we say so on this page and on the page itself.

Who Writes and Edits This Site

WeatherByCounty is published and edited by Evan Brooks, Data Editor. Evan designs the data pipeline, sets the methodology, reviews published prose for accuracy against the underlying data, and signs off on every methodology change. The data editor is not a meteorologist, climatologist, or licensed weather professional, and WeatherByCounty does not present itself as a forecast or emergency-alert service. The data editor's role is the data-editor role: ensure statistics on this site match the source datasets, ensure prose stays inside what the data supports, and decline to publish anything that strays into weather-prediction territory.

Long-form features and reported pieces carry an explicit byline at the top of the article. The data editor reviews and signs off on every long-form piece. When a feature genuinely benefits from a domain co-reviewer, we name that contributor only when they are actually involved — we do not list speculative reviewer credentials.

Where Our Data Comes From

All county-level statistics on this site come from primary government sources. We do not republish data from third-party aggregators. Our active sources are:

• NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) — the U.S. Climate Normals 1991-2020 dataset. Provides 30-year averages of temperature, precipitation, snowfall, extreme heat days, and growing-season metrics for weather stations across the United States. We use the most recent decadal release.
• NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) — forecast zone and WFO grid mappings used to link counties to local forecast offices for supplementary live-weather context.

Each source's URL, release date, and pull date are documented on the methodology page. Source datasets are in the public domain (federal works) and published under licenses permitting commercial redistribution with attribution.

How We Use AI

Per-county pages on this site include a short, AI-generated narrative summary that contextualizes the statistics for that county. The narrative is produced by Claude (Anthropic) from the same source data shown in the statistics tables on the page. The data editor reviews the underlying prompt and spot-checks output before publication; the prompt is constrained to forbid causation claims, weather predictions, and any prose that goes beyond what the source statistics support.

We do not use AI to:

• Generate weather forecasts, severe-weather warnings, or emergency guidance.
• Invent statistics, sources, or quotes.
• Write methodology, editorial standards, or correction notices.
• Generate cause-and-effect claims about climate patterns that aren't grounded in the source data.

When the underlying data is updated, narratives are regenerated to stay consistent. AI-generated prose is always paired with the source statistics so readers can verify the numbers themselves.

Corrections Policy

If you spot a factual error — a wrong statistic, a misattributed source, a broken citation, an outdated temperature average — email editorial@weatherbycounty.com with the page URL and the specific issue. We aim to acknowledge every report within five business days and to publish a correction or update the page within ten business days for substantive issues.

Substantive corrections (changes to a statistic, methodology, or claim) are noted in a "Corrections" entry on the page itself with the date of the correction and a short description of what changed. Typographical and formatting fixes are made silently.

How WeatherByCounty Is Funded

WeatherByCounty is independently owned and operated. It is part of the ByCounty Network of data sites. Funding comes from two transparent sources:

• Display advertising served by Google AdSense and similar networks. Ad placements are clearly labeled and do not influence editorial decisions or which counties we rank where.
• Affiliate links, currently limited to weather-station and home-improvement referrals. Affiliate links are labeled "Sponsored" and never determine which counties or weather products we feature on data pages.

We do not accept paid content, sponsored statistics, or advertorials. No data source, advertiser, or affiliate has any influence over the methodology, rankings, or editorial choices on this site.

Update Cadence

Underlying data is refreshed on the release schedule of each source (NOAA Climate Normals releases approximately every 10 years; the next release will cover 1991-2020 with updates as available). Narratives are regenerated when the underlying data for a county changes. The methodology page displays its own "Last reviewed" date and changelog. This editorial-standards page was last reviewed on May 17, 2026.