NOAA Historical Weather Observations

Export NOAA historical weather observations from the official NOAA/NCEI Daily Summaries dataset. Give the Actor one or more station IDs and a bounded date range; it returns one normalized station-day row with temperature, precipitation, snow, wind, humidity, pressure, station identity, and source provenance.

The Actor uses NOAA's anonymous public Access Data Service. It needs no NOAA API token, account, browser, or proxy.

What does this Actor do?

This Actor turns NOAA's source fields into integration-ready JSON. It:

• accepts up to 50 NOAA/NCEI station identifiers;
• exports up to 10 years and 10,000 station-day rows per run;
• chunks long ranges into reliable station-year requests;
• converts numeric source strings into numbers and blanks into null;
• preserves NOAA measurement and quality attributes when requested;
• retries transient network, HTTP 429, and HTTP 5xx failures;
• saves exact request URLs and retrieval timestamps for provenance.

It does not discover stations by city name. Resolve the station IDs you need before running it.

Who is it for?

• Climate analysts refreshing reproducible station time series.
• Agricultural researchers comparing rain, snow, temperature, and humidity.
• Risk and insurance teams preparing source-attributed weather histories.
• Data engineers feeding official daily observations into warehouses.
• Report creators updating recurring city or regional climate tables.

Why use it?

NOAA Daily Summaries expose many short source codes and optional values. This Actor provides a stable camelCase output, explicit metric units, station metadata, nullable fields, and source URLs. Multi-station batching, date chunking, output limits, retries, and Apify scheduling are handled for you.

Unlike forecast Actors, this product focuses on historical station observations. Unlike storm-event databases, it returns daily measurements rather than incident reports.

What data can you extract?

Group	Output fields
Identity	stationId, stationName, date
Location	latitude, longitude, elevationMeters
Temperature	average, maximum, minimum, dew point, and wet-bulb temperature in °C
Water and snow	precipitation, snowfall, and snow depth in mm
Wind	average speed, fastest 2-minute and 5-second speeds, and directions
Humidity	average, maximum, and minimum relative humidity percentages
Pressure	station and sea-level pressure in hPa
Provenance	NOAA dataset name, exact source URL, retrieval time, optional attributes

A field is null when the selected station did not report that measure for that day. The Actor does not estimate missing measurements.

How to get started

1. Open the Actor input page.
2. Enter one or more NOAA station IDs, for example USW00094728.
3. Set the inclusive start and end dates in YYYY-MM-DD format.
4. Choose an output limit and whether to keep NOAA attributes.
5. Click Start.
6. Open the default dataset to download JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or another Apify-supported format.

The prefilled input exports one week from New York Central Park and is a good first run.

Input parameters

Field	Type	Required	Description
stationIds	string array	Yes	1–50 NOAA/NCEI station IDs. IDs are deduplicated and normalized to uppercase.
startDate	string	Yes	Inclusive first date in YYYY-MM-DD format.
endDate	string	Yes	Inclusive last date. The maximum range is 3,660 days.
maxItems	integer	No	Maximum saved station-day rows, from 1 to 10,000. Default: 1,000.
includeAttributes	boolean	No	Preserve NOAA *_ATTRIBUTES strings. Default: true.

Example input:

{
  "stationIds": ["USW00094728", "USW00024233"],
  "startDate": "2024-01-01",
  "endDate": "2024-01-07",
  "maxItems": 14,
  "includeAttributes": true
}

Output example

This abbreviated record reflects the Actor's real NOAA/NCEI output shape:

{
  "stationId": "USW00094728",
  "stationName": "NY CITY CENTRAL PARK, NY US",
  "date": "2024-01-01",
  "latitude": 40.77898,
  "longitude": -73.96925,
  "elevationMeters": 42.7,
  "temperatureAverageC": null,
  "temperatureMaxC": 8.3,
  "temperatureMinC": 1.7,
  "precipitationMm": 0.8,
  "snowfallMm": 0,
  "snowDepthMm": 0,
  "averageWindSpeedMetersPerSecond": 1.5,
  "relativeHumidityAveragePercent": 63,
  "stationPressureHpa": 1011.5,
  "seaLevelPressureHpa": 1016.6,
  "attributes": { "PRCP_ATTRIBUTES": ",,W,2400" },
  "sourceDataset": "NOAA/NCEI Daily Summaries",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/services/data/v1?dataset=daily-summaries&stations=USW00094728&startDate=2024-01-01&endDate=2024-01-07&format=json&units=metric",
  "retrievedAt": "2025-01-15T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Understanding NOAA attributes

When includeAttributes is enabled, the attributes object contains NOAA's original comma-separated metadata strings, keyed by source field. These can encode measurement, quality, and source flags. The Actor preserves them without inventing interpretations. Consult the NOAA Daily Summaries documentation when a workflow depends on individual flag positions.

How much does it cost to export NOAA weather observations?

Pricing uses a one-time $0.00005 start event plus one observation event per saved station-day row. You are never charged an observation event for malformed, duplicate, rejected, or absent rows.

At the BRONZE tier of $0.00024 per observation:

Useful output	Observation events	Estimated total
7 station-days	7	$0.00173
100 station-days	100	$0.02405
1,000 station-days	1,000	$0.24005

Higher account tiers receive lower per-observation prices. Your Apify Console shows the applicable tier and maximum charge before a run.

Scheduling recurring climate refreshes

Create an Apify Schedule with fixed station IDs and a moving date window managed by your calling workflow. Store the stable stationId + date pair as the natural key in your warehouse. Because NOAA may revise quality-controlled values, use an upsert rather than append-only ingestion when refreshing recent dates.

A typical monthly workflow is:

1. run the Actor for the reporting stations and month;
2. export the default dataset through the API;
3. upsert by station and date;
4. retain sourceUrl, retrievedAt, and attributes for auditability;
5. alert downstream only after the Actor run succeeds.

Limits and failure behavior

• Date ranges longer than 3,660 days are rejected before any source request.
• At most 50 station IDs and 10,000 output rows are accepted per run.
• The Actor requests metric units only.
• Station coverage and available fields differ by place and year.
• A valid station/date combination with no NOAA rows finishes successfully with an empty dataset.
• Invalid station syntax, invalid calendar dates, and reversed ranges fail the run.
• Deterministic NOAA 4xx responses fail immediately; transient failures receive up to three attempts.
• The Actor does not interpolate, aggregate, or correct official values.

For larger archives, divide work into station/year tasks so each run remains easy to retry and inspect.

Export and integrations

The default dataset works with Apify's integrations and dataset API. Common patterns include:

• export CSV or Excel for research and reporting;
• send finished datasets to Google Drive or cloud storage;
• trigger a webhook when a scheduled refresh succeeds;
• load JSON into BigQuery, Snowflake, PostgreSQL, or a notebook;
• connect through Make, Zapier, or another Apify integration.

Always use stationId and date together when joining records.

Use the Actor through the API

Replace YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN with your Apify API token.

cURL

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~noaa-historical-weather-observations/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"stationIds":["USW00094728"],"startDate":"2024-01-01","endDate":"2024-01-07","maxItems":7}'

JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/noaa-historical-weather-observations').call({
  stationIds: ['USW00094728'],
  startDate: '2024-01-01',
  endDate: '2024-01-07',
  maxItems: 7,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

import os
from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient(os.environ['APIFY_TOKEN'])
run = client.actor('automation-lab/noaa-historical-weather-observations').call(run_input={
    'stationIds': ['USW00094728'],
    'startDate': '2024-01-01',
    'endDate': '2024-01-07',
    'maxItems': 7,
})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

Use with MCP and AI agents

Add this Actor to Claude Code through Apify MCP:

claude mcp add --transport http apify \
  "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/noaa-historical-weather-observations"

Claude Desktop

Add the following remote MCP server configuration in Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/noaa-historical-weather-observations"
    }
  }
}

Cursor

In Cursor, add the same apify server URL under Settings → MCP → Add new MCP server.

VS Code

In VS Code with MCP support, add the same remote HTTP URL to your workspace MCP server configuration and enable the apify server.

Example prompts:

• “Export Central Park NOAA daily weather for January 2024.”
• “Refresh January observations for stations USW00094728, USW00024233, and USW00094846.”
• “Return Seattle daily precipitation and temperature with NOAA attributes.”

Supply exact station IDs and dates in the tool input.

Legality and responsible use

NOAA/NCEI publishes this government weather dataset for public access. Follow NOAA's terms, citation guidance, and applicable laws. Do not present an individual station as representative of a whole region without appropriate analysis. Keep the source fields when results support regulated, scientific, insurance, or safety decisions. This Actor is an independent automation tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NOAA.

Troubleshooting

Why is my dataset empty?

Confirm that the station ID exists and reported Daily Summaries during the requested dates. Some stations have limited periods of record. Try a known date for that station before expanding the range.

Why are some fields null?

NOAA stations do not all report the same measures. null means the source omitted or did not provide a usable numeric value; it is not zero.

Why did the run fail with an HTTP 400 error?

The NOAA service rejected the station/date request. Recheck station syntax and dates. The Actor intentionally does not retry deterministic client errors.

How do I avoid duplicate rows?

The Actor deduplicates repeated station IDs in one input. Across runs, upsert downstream using the composite key stationId + date.

FAQ

Does this Actor require a NOAA token?

No. It uses the anonymous NCEI Access Data Service rather than the token-gated Climate Data Online API.

Is the data worldwide?

Coverage follows NOAA/NCEI Daily Summaries. Many countries and station networks are represented, but availability differs by station and year.

Can I search by city or coordinates?

Not in this version. The Actor intentionally requires NOAA station IDs so selection is explicit and repeatable.

Does it return forecasts or alerts?

No. It exports historical daily station observations only.

Can I disable quality attributes?

Yes. Set includeAttributes to false for smaller rows while retaining source identity and retrieval provenance.

Related automation-lab Actors

• Open Meteo Scraper for location-based forecast and archive workflows.
• NOAA Storm Events Database Scraper for historical storm incidents, damage, injuries, and event narratives.

These products return different entities; choose them when the buyer job is not station-day observation export.