Terms of Service

StormSync Academy is operated by StormSync Media, a non-incorporated sole operator, at academy.sswx.space. Throughout this document "we" and "us" mean that operator, and "you" means the person using the Academy.

Because the operator is not an incorporated company, your agreement is with an individual trading under a business name. That does not change any obligation set out below, but you are entitled to know it.

You must be 18 or over. This is not a formality we intend to overlook: accounts state a date of birth at sign-up, the platform refuses to create one for anybody under 18, and an account found to belong to a minor will be closed and any payment refunded in full.

You may hold one account. You are responsible for what happens under it, including anything done by somebody you let use your device while you are signed in.

We may decline or close an account. Where we do so for anything short of a serious breach, we will say why and refund any course you have paid for and not completed.

A one-time purchase gives you access to that course for as long as the Academy operates it. We call that lifetime access, and precisely what it means is: we will not take away material you have paid for, and we will not charge you again for the same course.

It does not mean the course never changes. We correct errors, replace material that has dated, and improve lessons. Meteorology moves, and a course that never changed would be worse rather than better.

A subscription gives access for as long as it is paid. When it lapses, access to that course ends; your progress, notes and grades are kept and resume where they were if you subscribe again.

If we permanently withdraw a course you bought outright, we will tell you before we do it and refund you in proportion to what is left, whatever the refund window would otherwise say.

Prices are in US dollars. Sales tax and VAT are calculated at checkout according to where you are, and shown before you pay.

Payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card details.

You may refund a one-time course purchase in full within five days of buying it, yourself, from your Purchases page, without asking or explaining. Doing so closes the course; your progress is kept in case you come back.

After five days, write to us. We would rather hear the reason and make a decision than hide behind a rule, particularly if something was not as described.

Subscriptions are cancelled through us and stop at the end of the period already paid for. We do not refund part-months, and we do not bill again once you have cancelled.

We will not sell your personal information. Not aggregated, not anonymised, not as a data set.

We will not use your coursework to train a machine learning model, ours or anybody else's.

We will not put advertising inside a course you have paid for.

Everything you write, including notes, forum posts, assignments and flashcards, remains yours. You give us permission to store and display it as the Academy requires, and nothing beyond that.

Course material, lessons, assessments, artwork and the platform itself remain ours. You may keep copies for your own study, including offline. You may not republish them, sell them, or use them to teach a course of your own.

Certificates state what you actually completed. We will not issue one that overstates it, and we will withdraw one obtained by cheating.

The Code of Conduct forms part of these terms. Discussion is moderated after posting rather than before: what you write appears immediately, and may be hidden or removed afterwards if it breaks the rules.

Academic dishonesty, meaning submitting somebody else's work, sharing assessment answers, or using an assistant where a course says not to, may cost you the grade, the course, or the account, depending on what happened.

The Academy teaches meteorology, forecasting and storm spotting. Nothing in it is an operational forecast or a safety instruction for a live weather event. In severe weather, follow your national weather service and your local emergency management, not a lesson.

We aim to keep the Academy available, and will say so plainly when it is not, but we do not promise uninterrupted service.

To the extent the law allows, our liability to you is limited to what you have paid us in the twelve months before a claim. Nothing here limits liability for death, personal injury or fraud, because nothing can.

We may change these terms. Where a change is material we will tell you before it takes effect, in the Academy and by email, and the date at the top of this page will change.

You may close your account at any time from your settings. Doing so erases your personal data as described in the Privacy Policy.

These terms are governed by the law of the operator's jurisdiction. Nothing in them removes a consumer right you have where you live.