How our independent restoration forecast works
What it is
Live outage status tells you what is out. Our restoration forecast estimates when power may come back — including before your utility posts an official ETA. It is independent and unofficial: computed from public outage data, never the utility's commitment.
How it's computed
We analyze how quickly customers are being restored, whether the outage is still growing, current weather, outage size, and similar past outages in the same area. The estimate recalculates about every 15 minutes as new readings arrive. Where enough graded history exists, the forecast shows a range grounded in our own past accuracy (for example "likely 2–5 hr") instead of false precision.
When we don't show a time
Honesty beats filling the card. You'll see "Forecast gathering data" when there aren't enough readings yet or an outage is too small for a meaningful county trend, and "No clear recovery trend yet" while outages aren't steadily declining (a falling count can reverse — we wait for evidence the peak has passed before quoting hours). We never invent a return time.
Official ETA vs our forecast
When the utility posts its own restoration time, we show both, side by side, labeled separately — the official ETA is never silently replaced. The two answer different questions: the utility knows its crews; our forecast watches what the outage is actually doing.
How it's graded
Every completed forecast is compared with when power actually returned, automatically — and we publish the results, including misses: how many hours off we typically are (with sample sizes), accuracy by outage size, and a side-by-side comparison with the utility's own posted times. The reliability research grades utilities' posted ETAs by the same ground truth.
What the forecast is not
It is not a commitment — no one outside your utility dispatches crews, and we never present our number as theirs. It is not street-by-street: a county estimate describes the county's recovery as a whole, and city/neighborhood rows (where a utility publishes them) describe those areas. And it is never a guess dressed as data: every status the card can show — gathering, growing, holding, restoring, a range — corresponds to a specific measured condition, and the vocabulary is deliberately fixed so the same words always mean the same thing.
The statuses you'll see, explained
"Estimating…" — not enough readings yet (a fresh outage needs a second data point). "Still growing" — the affected count is rising; quoting a restoration time now would be premature, so we say so instead. "Holding steady" — numbers aren't moving enough to trend either way. "~N hr to restore" — a live rate exists and the peak looks behind us. "Likely X–Y hr" — enough graded history from similar outages exists to put an honest range around the number instead of false precision.
Why an estimate can disappear
Data drops out — a utility's map goes down, or a county disappears from the national outage data. When that happens the card says data is missing rather than pretending the outage ended: absence of data is never treated as restoration. The estimate returns when readings do, with the gap visible in the trend line.
How to actually use it
Tie decisions to thresholds, not vibes: at what estimate do you move food to a cooler (the 4-hour window makes that one easy), at what point does the household relocate (heat, cold, or medical needs set it), when is the generator worth starting? Use the far edge of a range for anything with a hard deadline, and watch the trend, not just the number — an estimate that keeps moving later is itself information.
Limits to keep in mind
County-wide estimates cover a whole county — your street can come back earlier or later. Coverage depends on utilities reporting to public feeds, and missing data is not the same as zero outages. In any emergency, follow your utility and 911 — never this site.