Methodology & limitations

Severity is not confidence

Severity describes potential impact. Confidence describes the evidence. A critical keyword-matched headline can still be unverified. Never use a severity label as proof of an incident.

Confirmed

Published by the agency of record for that event. Forecasts and watches remain forecasts, not observations.

Corroborated

Three or more distinct publisher domains carry similar headlines. This is approximate independence, not proof of independent reporting; syndicated stories can inflate counts.

Preliminary

Automatic earthquake solutions or two distinct news outlets. Parameters and early reports may change.

Unverified

One news outlet or keyword signal. A lead only, never a confirmed fact.

Collection & gaps

Server-side collection is scheduled every 10 minutes on the published site, independent of an open browser. Each source has its own minimum interval. The feed checks the stored reports every minute, not the original providers. Failed, rate-limited and unconfigured connectors stay visible in Source health. No report is fabricated to fill a gap.

Official connectors cover earthquakes, open natural events, disaster alerts, exploited cyber vulnerabilities, space weather, FAA status and WHO notices. Keyword-categorized news depends on GDELT, which is queried at most once an hour and often rate-limits shared cloud addresses. BBC World, Al Jazeera English, DW, UN News and ReliefWeb RSS provide linked publisher headlines only: they carry no verified location, so they never count as local coverage. Official maritime navigational warnings are currently not collected (NGA timed out repeatedly; no reachable free official alternative). The ReliefWeb disaster API requires an approved application name; the ReliefWeb RSS feed is a separate headline list, not equivalent disaster records. Coverage is incomplete and not a comprehensive global monitoring service.

Severity & critical alerts

Earthquakes: magnitude 7+ or orange/red USGS PAGER are critical; magnitude 6+, yellow PAGER or a tsunami flag are high. GDACS red alerts and NOAA G/S/R scale 4–5 are critical. News terms are preliminary severity signals only. Notifications are limited to newly detected critical events; initial backfill and unverified reports are excluded. Default notification confidence is confirmed or corroborated. Events older than six hours, future-dated events and events without a usable source event/publication time do not qualify for push.

Deduplication, location & time

Identical source records are deduplicated. Similar news headlines are grouped using token overlap; cross-agency hazards use type, approximate distance and time. Grouping is heuristic and can merge unrelated stories or miss duplicates. Source counts are not a guarantee of independent corroboration.

Locations are either reported by the source or explicitly approximate. Country names inferred from headlines use country centroids; these are not incident coordinates. Reports without usable coordinates remain in the feed. All timestamps are UTC. Source publication, event time and collection time are distinct; unavailable source times are not invented. GDELT seendate is an indexing time, not a verified publication time; it is labeled separately. Reports are retained for 30 days.

Explore Area & local coverage

Area search indexes source-supplied location labels and country tags from the latest 1,000 retained reports; it is not a complete global place directory. City and region matches use exact source labels, not guessed boundaries or headline keyword searches. Country tags may be inferred; a country centroid never establishes a city-level incident.

Intelligence shows matching official and news reports. Local News requires source-reported news geography. Current GDELT news geography is inferred, so it does not qualify as verified local coverage. No dedicated local-news provider is connected. Empty results show collection gaps, not an all-clear. Time filters cover 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days within the available retained data.

Free access & infrastructure limits

Visitors can read reports, view the map and use the on-site alert center without an account, subscription or payment. There is no native App Store distribution. Home Screen installation uses the same public website.

Current adapters use public sources rather than paid data APIs. Provider rate limits, outages and incomplete coverage still apply. OpenStreetMap tiles require attribution, internet access and compliance with its usage policy; no bulk downloads or offline tile caching are enabled.

Free source data does not guarantee free hosting. Existing Lovable Cloud hosting and collection are usage-metered beyond available allowances; remaining coverage and future costs must be reviewed before public launch. No paid API, upgrade or additional usage-billed service will be added without approval.

Responsible use

Only lawful public sources are collected. WORLD WATCH does not provide tactical unit tracking, sensitive real-time operational positions, individual military tracking or targeting information. Consult local authorities and official warning services for safety decisions. This dashboard is not an emergency service, an official warning system, or a substitute for professional verification.