Mountain Forecast Scraper

Scrape mountain weather forecasts from Mountain-Forecast.com — detailed 6-day outlooks for 100,000+ named peaks worldwide, at summit / mid / base elevations. Search peaks by name, browse every peak in a country or mountain range, or paste a specific forecast URL. HTTP-only against the site's static pages. No auth, no proxy.

What this actor does

• Four modes: search (by peak name), browseByCountry (198 countries), browseByRange (85 mountain ranges), byUrl (direct forecast URL)
• Mountain ranges: every range on the site's /mountain_ranges index — small ranges (e.g. Greenland, Pennines) list peaks directly; huge ranges (e.g. Alps, Andes) are walked subrange-by-subrange automatically
• Elevation bands: summit + mid + base levels per peak (2–7 bands), each with its own forecast table, tagged with elevationGroup (top / mid / bot)
• Per-period metrics: temperature (max/min), feels-like wind chill, wind speed & direction, cloud base, freezing level, snowfall (cm) and rainfall (mm) for every AM / PM / night period
• Rolling 6-day outlook with plain-language "Days 1–3" / "Days 4–6" summaries
• Filters: forecast horizon (1/3/6 days), keyword on peak name, optional all-elevation records
• Peak metadata: coordinates, country, mountain range / region, summit altitude, canonical peakUrl
• Empty fields are omitted

Data source

Data is scraped from Mountain-Forecast.com — a long-running public mountain weather service covering 100,000+ named peaks worldwide. Forecast pages are static public HTML; search uses the site's public /location_search JSON endpoint. No authentication, cookies, or proxy required. This is a third-party actor — it is not affiliated with Mountain-Forecast.com.

Output per peak forecast

• peakName, countryName, countryIso, mountainRange, region
• latitude, longitude, summitAltitude, peakUrl
• elevation — the elevation band this forecast belongs to
• elevationBands[] — every band of the peak (elevation, label such as "Mountain Peak" / "Base", elevationGroup)
• daySummaries[] — "Days 1–3 Weather Summary" and "Days 4–6 Weather Summary" texts
• days[] — one entry per forecast day (date, dayName, periods[]):
  • period — AM / PM / night
  • phrase — weather description (clear, snow shwrs, risk tstorm, …)
  • tempMax, tempMin, feelsLike — °C
  • windSpeed (km/h), windDirection
  • cloudBase (m), freezingLevel (m), snow (cm), rain (mm)
  • sunrise, sunset (local times)
• sourceUrl, recordType: "peakForecast", scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	search	search / browseByCountry / browseByRange / byUrl
searchQuery	string	matterhorn	Peak name, city or hut (mode=search)
country	string	CH	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country — all 198 countries on the site (mode=browseByCountry). Also narrows search and byUrl results to peaks the site lists in that country
mountainRange	string	alps	Mountain range slug — all 85 ranges on the site (mode=browseByRange)
startUrl	string	Matterhorn forecast	Forecast or peak page URL (mode=byUrl)
forecastDays	int	6	Forecast horizon: 1 / 3 / 6 days
containsKeyword	string	–	Keep only peaks whose name contains this substring
includeAllElevations	bool	false	Emit one record per elevation band (not just the summit)
maxItems	int	10	Hard cap (1–100)

Example: search a peak

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "mont blanc",
  "forecastDays": 3,
  "maxItems": 5
}

Example: browse every peak in a country

{
  "mode": "browseByCountry",
  "country": "CH",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: browse a mountain range

{
  "mode": "browseByRange",
  "mountainRange": "greater-himalaya",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: all elevation bands of one peak

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "matterhorn",
  "includeAllElevations": true,
  "maxItems": 10
}

Example: scrape a specific forecast URL

{
  "mode": "byUrl",
  "startUrl": "https://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Matterhorn/forecasts/4478"
}

Limitations

• Site's country attribution — the country value filters peaks by the country the site itself lists them under. Border peaks (e.g. Klein Matterhorn on the Swiss-Italian border) may be attributed to the neighbouring country.
• 6-day rolling outlook — the source publishes a rolling 6-day forecast (the summary texts mention days 1–7); forecastDays accepts 1, 3 or 6.
• Three periods per day — AM / PM / night; there are no hourly values on the free pages.
• Period-level omissions — fields like sunrise, rain, or cloudBase appear only on the periods where the source reports a value.
• Some country pages have no peaks — a few countries (e.g. Barbados) publish no peaks and return a clean status message.

Use cases

• Mountaineering & expedition planning — pull summit-level wind, temperature and snowfall outlooks before a climb
• Ski resorts & heli-ski ops — track freezing level and fresh snow across candidate peaks
• Trail & hiking apps — enrich hike databases with live per-elevation weather
• Outdoor gear brands — contextualize product demand against mountain conditions
• Climate / mountain research — build longitudinal datasets of high-altitude conditions
• Tourism dashboards — power peak-condition widgets for destination sites

FAQ

What's the data source? Mountain-Forecast.com, a long-running mountain weather service covering 100,000+ named peaks. This is a third-party actor using the site's public pages; it is not affiliated with Mountain-Forecast.com.

Why 6 days, not 7? The source's free forecast table publishes a rolling 6-day outlook (the summary texts mention days 1–7). forecastDays accepts 1, 3 or 6 to control how many days are emitted.

How do I browse a whole range like the Alps? Large ranges list their subranges first; the actor follows every subrange page automatically (up to maxItems). Small ranges list their peaks directly.

Can I use any country on the site? Yes — the country dropdown covers all 198 country pages the site publishes, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. A few (e.g. Barbados) have no peaks and return a clear status message.

Are the periods hourly? No — the source's free view is three periods per day: AM, PM and night. Each period carries its own temperature, wind, precipitation and cloud values.

What if a period has no data? Empty values are omitted entirely — e.g. sunrise only appears on the period where the site shows it, and rain/cloudBase appear only when the source reports a value.

Does the summit forecast page cover lower elevations? Every peak page exposes 2–7 elevation bands. By default the actor emits the summit forecast; flip includeAllElevations to true for one record per band.

Are coordinates and ranges real? Yes — latitude/longitude and the mountain range/region come straight from each peak's page.

How fresh is the data? Mountain-Forecast.com updates forecasts continuously; every run scrapes the live page at run time.