Sources & methodology
Every number on PuertoRico.com comes from a public source. This page lists them, how often they update, and what we chose not to publish.
Data sources
| What | Source | Refresh | License |
|---|---|---|---|
| San Juan weather, sunrise and sunset, forecast | Open-Meteo Forecast API | Live in your browser, cached 10 min | CC BY 4.0 |
| Wave height, swell, sea-surface temperature | Open-Meteo Marine API | Live in your browser | CC BY 4.0 |
| Measured water temperature, San Juan Bay | NOAA CO-OPS station 9755371 (La Puntilla) | Live in your browser (6-min station data) | U.S. public domain |
| Earthquakes | USGS Earthquake Hazards Program (FDSN event API) | Live in your browser | U.S. public domain |
| Active storms and tropical outlook | NOAA National Hurricane Center: CurrentStorms.json and gtwo.xml | Snapshot at each site build (planned every 30 min) | U.S. public domain |
| News headlines (English) | Google News RSS search for Puerto Rico | At each build | Headlines © publishers; linked |
| News headlines (Spanish) | El Nuevo Día, NotiCel and Primera Hora RSS feeds | At each build | Headlines © publishers; linked |
| Holidays | OATRH, Memorando Especial ME-12-2026, applied by rule to other years | Reviewed annually | Public information |
| Municipal boundaries and land area | U.S. Census Bureau cartographic boundary files 2023 (1:500k), simplified | Static | U.S. public domain |
| Municipal population | 2020 Decennial Census counts, via Wikidata | Static | CC0 |
| Driving distances and times | OSRM routing engine on OpenStreetMap data | Calculated at build, static | ODbL (OpenStreetMap) |
| Base map tiles | OpenStreetMap | Live | ODbL |
Current snapshots: news Oct 12, 10:04 AM AST · NHC Oct 12, 10:04 AM AST.
How this newsroom works
PuertoRico.com News Desk stories are compiled from multiple named Puerto Rico and U.S. sources: island and national news outlets, plus official sources such as government agencies, utilities and courts. Every source is cited and linked in the story.
Every claim is checked against those sources before a story is published. A story runs only when at least two independent outlets, or an official source and an outlet, report it, and every source link is opened and checked.
Stories are updated as reporting develops. Each update is timestamped and says what changed.
Corrections: if you spot an error, email support@puertorico.com with the story link. Errors are corrected on the story, with a note saying what was fixed.
Sources the News Desk checks
The News Desk checks 30 feeds and official sources throughout the day: Puerto Rico outlets, wire coverage through Google News, and official channels such as the National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center, USGS, FEMA, LUMA, Genera PR and the oversight board. A story is published only when at least two independent outlets, or an official source and an outlet, report it. Outlets that share copy (El Vocero and The Weekly Journal) count as one. We cite pages we can open; paywalled or blocked pages are not cited.
| Feed | Type | Items kept | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google News: "Puerto Rico" (English) | Reporting | 34 | OK |
| Google News: PR government, energy, economy (English) | Reporting | 2 | OK |
| Google News: "Puerto Rico" (Spanish) | Reporting | 95 | OK |
| Google News: gobierno, energía, tribunales (Spanish) | Reporting | 50 | OK |
| AP via Google News | Reporting | 3 | OK |
| Reuters via Google News | Reporting | 4 | OK |
| News is my Business via Google News | Reporting | 7 | OK |
| El Vocero via Google News | Reporting | 99 | OK |
| La Fortaleza via Google News | Reporting | 1 | OK |
| El Nuevo Día RSS | Reporting | 19 | OK |
| Primera Hora RSS | Reporting | 20 | OK |
| NotiCel RSS | Reporting | 9 | OK |
| Metro Puerto Rico RSS | Reporting | 32 | OK |
| El Vocero RSS | Reporting | 38 | OK |
| The Weekly Journal RSS | Reporting | 50 | OK |
| News is my Business (WordPress API, Business) | Reporting | 50 | OK |
| The San Juan Daily Star RSS | Reporting | 20 | OK |
| Centro de Periodismo Investigativo RSS | Reporting | 8 | OK |
| Sin Comillas RSS | Reporting | 3 | OK |
| Latino Rebels RSS | Reporting | 2 | OK |
| NWS San Juan alerts (api.weather.gov) | Official | 0 | OK |
| National Hurricane Center (Atlantic RSS) | Official | 0 | OK |
| USGS earthquakes M4+ near Puerto Rico | Official | 0 | OK |
| FEMA news RSS | Official | 2 | OK |
| FEMA disaster declarations (OpenFEMA) | Official | 1 | OK |
| LUMA Energy news RSS | Official | 10 | OK |
| Genera PR news RSS | Official | 10 | OK |
| Financial Oversight and Management Board RSS | Official | 10 | OK |
| Resident Commissioner Pablo José Hernández (house.gov RSS) | Official | 10 | OK |
| U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Puerto Rico (justice.gov RSS) | Official | HTTP 404 |
29 of 30 working at the last check.
What we left out, and why
| LUMA power outages | No documented public data feed. We link to LUMA rather than scrape its outage map. |
| Rip current risk / surf zone forecast | Issued as text products by NWS San Juan; not yet parsed. We link to the official forecast. |
| Gas prices | No free, official, island-wide price feed. |
| News is My Business and The Weekly Journal feeds | Their RSS feeds refused our feed reader during development; their stories still appear via Google News. |
Methodology notes
Live figures are requested directly by your browser from the agency or API, so they are as fresh as the source. Each shows the time the source reports, in Atlantic Standard Time (AST, UTC−4).
Snapshots (news, NHC) are fetched when the site is built, because those sources do not allow direct browser requests. Each shows the time it was taken.
News topics are assigned by matching keywords in English and Spanish. Headlines from property listings and press-release wires are filtered out.
Storm distance is the great-circle distance from San Juan to the storm center reported by NHC, not the distance to the edge of its winds.
Driving times are free-flow estimates from OSRM between the coordinates Wikidata gives for each municipality's center. They do not include traffic, tolls or stops.
Population figures are 2020 Census counts. Together they sum to 3,285,874, the official total for Puerto Rico. Density uses Census land area.
Destination guides are written from the official sites of the agencies that manage each place (NPS, USDA Forest Service, USFWS, Para la Naturaleza, NSF) and are linked on each page.
Photo credits
All photos are from Wikimedia Commons under free licenses, stored on this site and credited where they appear.
