Weather Methodology & Editorial Policy

Most WFY24 weather, time and air-quality pages are generated from structured datasets and refreshed as source data changes. They are product pages: their job is to surface forecast information clearly, consistently and locally.

Editorial articles and explainers serve a different role. They add narrative context, interpretation, science background and seasonal guidance where a pure data template would be too dry or too limited.

WFY24 should make it easy for users and bots to understand where forecasts come from, how often they refresh and what each module represents. That is why pages like Data Sources, FAQ and methodology documentation matter: they turn infrastructure into transparent product behavior.

In practice, forecast and AQI pages can update automatically when upstream data updates. That is normal for a data-driven weather product and does not imply a hand-edited article rewrite each time.

WFY24 explainers should separate verified facts from interpretation, avoid false certainty, and distinguish model guidance from official warnings. When weather articles mention timings, regions or risks, the claims should be attributable to a clear source or to a transparent model-based interpretation.

• Use precise dates and locations when timing matters.
• Avoid sensational framing that overstates confidence in uncertain weather windows.
• Prefer source-linked science and official agency context for high-impact events.

If a place name, route, map label, translation or article claim is wrong, the preferred workflow is to correct the source and let the page update everywhere it is reused. Severe-weather safety information should defer to official meteorological and civil-protection agencies whenever there is a conflict.

Questions, corrections and source clarifications should route through the WFY24 contact channel so they can be reviewed, fixed and reflected in both the page copy and the structured metadata when needed.

On eight-thousander peak pages (Mount Everest and the other 13 summits above 8000 m), WFY24 surfaces a climber-facing safety layer: a frostbite time-to-freeze estimate, a wind-chill value, a 5-tier risk classification, and a composite "summit window" open/marginal/closed verdict.

The frostbite minutes and risk tier are computed from the NWS/JAG-TI 2001 Wind Chill standard, using the same formula the forecast feels-like field already applies on every city page. Stationary exposure is halved from the moving baseline per the guidance in Auerbach's Wilderness Medicine, chapter 8. We do not apply an altitude correction; the published chart is for sea-level reference conditions. Published values are therefore conservative upper bounds — actual frostbite risk on a summit is usually WORSE than the chart indicates, not better.

The summit-window verdict is a composite of five inputs — wind speed, wind-chill tier, precipitation rate, cloud cover, and visibility — with thresholds calibrated to eight-thousander conditions (wind CLOSED threshold 55 km/h, precip CLOSED threshold 0.5 mm/h, cloud CLOSED threshold 85%, visibility CLOSED threshold 1 km). The full rules are in the source code; any active triggers are returned alongside the status so the page shows you why the window is rated the way it is, not just the conclusion.

• Not a medical device. Not a substitute for a certified weather briefing from your expedition service.
• Altitude is NOT adjusted for; thin air at 8000 m accelerates heat loss beyond what the chart predicts.
• Data refreshes every 6 h via DWD ICON-Global. The age of the current cycle is shown on the summit card — if it reads >9 h, the ingest pipeline has missed a cycle and you should treat numbers as stale.
• For summit attempts, always defer to the forecast your expedition operator sources — typically Meteotest, MeteoExploration or a direct ECMWF HRES feed with a human forecaster in the loop.