NASA POWER Solar & Weather Data Scraper

NASA POWER Solar & Weather Data Scraper

Scrape NASA POWER solar and weather data for any location, from daily to hourly, up to a million records per run. Each row returns the exact parameters you pick, in metric or imperial units, ready for CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML export.

NASA POWER provides global solar irradiance, temperature, wind, and precipitation data, but the official API needs manual parameter codes and returns nested JSON. This Actor reads the public POWER API directly, lets you pick locations, time granularity, and parameters from a clean catalog, and returns each record as one flat row.

Who uses it	What they scrape NASA POWER for
Solar energy developers	Assess solar irradiance and temperature at a site before designing a PV system
Climate researchers	Pull long-term daily or monthly weather variables for trend analysis
Agronomists	Get precipitation, humidity, and degree days to model crop conditions
Building engineers	Retrieve heating and cooling degree days for energy load calculations
Data analysts	Build a clean dataset of weather and solar variables for multiple locations

What it does

This Actor collects NASA POWER solar and weather data for the locations, time range, and parameters you specify, and returns each record as a flat row.

• 📍 Multiple locations: pass a list of latitude and longitude pairs, each with an optional name, and get one row per location per time step.
• ⏱️ Four time granularities: daily, monthly, hourly, or climatology long-term means, with start and end dates for daily, monthly, and hourly.
• 📊 Parameter catalog: choose from 26 solar, temperature, wind, humidity, precipitation, and degree-day variables, grouped by community.
• 🌐 Unit flexibility: return values in metric (SI) or imperial units, per your selection.
• 📦 Flat output: every record is a single row with location, date, and all requested parameters, ready for export.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with NASA POWER data

☀️ Solar site assessment.

A solar developer enters the coordinates of a proposed PV site, selects daily all-sky shortwave downward irradiance and temperature for a full year, and uses the dataset to estimate energy yield.

🌾 Crop modeling.

An agronomist pulls daily precipitation, humidity, and temperature for several farm locations over a growing season to feed a crop simulation model.

🏢 Building energy analysis.

A building engineer retrieves monthly heating and cooling degree days for a city to calculate annual HVAC loads for a new office building.

📈 Climate trend research.

A climate researcher downloads 30 years of monthly temperature and precipitation for a set of weather stations to analyze long-term trends.

💨 Wind resource evaluation.

A renewable energy consultant gets hourly wind speed at 50 meters for a candidate wind farm location to assess the wind resource.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key or registration	The Actor calls the public NASA POWER API directly, so you start scraping in minutes.
Clean, flat schema	Every record is a single row with location, date, and your chosen parameters, no nested JSON to parse.
Flexible time windows	Get daily, monthly, hourly, or climatology data for any date range the API supports.
Parameter catalog built in	Pick from 26 variables across renewable energy, sustainable buildings, and agro-climatology communities.
Metric or imperial	Choose SI or English units for all returned values.

How it compares

This Actor offers more time granularities, a wider parameter catalog, and unit flexibility compared to the direct competitor, which focuses on daily data only.

Feature	ParseForge	NASA POWER Weather Scraper - Daily Climate Data
Hourly time granularity	Yes	Not listed
Monthly time granularity	Yes	Not listed
Climatology long-term means	Yes	Not listed
Parameter catalog with 26 variables	Yes	Not listed
Metric and imperial units	Yes	Not listed
Multiple locations in one run	Yes	Not listed

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a list of latitude and longitude points, a time granularity, a date range, a parameter community, and the specific parameters you need, and each record is returned as one flat row. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "maxItems": 10,
  "points": [
    {
      "name": "Phoenix, AZ",
      "latitude": 33.4484,
      "longitude": -112.074
    },
    {
      "name": "Berlin, DE",
      "latitude": 52.52,
      "longitude": 13.405
    }
  ],
  "temporal": "daily",
  "start": "20240101",
  "end": "20240131",
  "community": "RE",
  "parameters": [
    "ALLSKY_SFC_SW_DWN",
    "T2M",
    "T2M_MAX",
    "T2M_MIN",
    "RH2M",
    "WS10M",
    "PRECTOTCORR"
  ],
  "unitsFormat": "METRIC"
}

A larger pull:

{
  "maxItems": 200,
  "points": [
    {
      "name": "Phoenix, AZ",
      "latitude": 33.4484,
      "longitude": -112.074
    },
    {
      "name": "Berlin, DE",
      "latitude": 52.52,
      "longitude": 13.405
    }
  ],
  "temporal": "daily",
  "start": "20240101",
  "end": "20240131",
  "community": "RE",
  "parameters": [
    "ALLSKY_SFC_SW_DWN",
    "T2M",
    "T2M_MAX",
    "T2M_MIN",
    "RH2M",
    "WS10M",
    "PRECTOTCORR"
  ],
  "unitsFormat": "METRIC"
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.005 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$0.50
1,000 results	$5.00
10,000 results	$50.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the NASA POWER Solar & Weather Data Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to NASA POWER through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/nasa-power-energy-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check that your date range is valid for the chosen granularity. For daily and hourly, use YYYYMMDD format. For monthly, use YYYY. Also ensure your coordinates are within valid ranges and that you have selected at least one parameter.

Why are some parameter values missing or null?

Some parameters may not be available for certain locations or time periods, especially over oceans or before satellite coverage. Try a different parameter or a longer time aggregation like monthly.

Why did I only get 10 records?

Free Apify users are limited to 10 records as a preview. Upgrade to a paid plan to increase the maxItems limit up to 1,000,000.

Why is my date format rejected?

The Actor expects YYYYMMDD for daily and hourly, and YYYY for monthly. For example, January 1, 2024 is 20240101. Do not include hyphens or slashes.

Why did I get an error about parameters?

Make sure the parameters you selected belong to the community you chose. For example, degree days are only in the Sustainable Buildings community. You can switch the community to see the full list.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What is NASA POWER?	NASA POWER (Prediction Of Worldwide Energy Resources) is a NASA project that provides global solar and meteorological data derived from satellite observations and reanalysis models. It covers the entire globe from 1981 to near present.
Do I need an API key to use this Actor?	No. The Actor calls the public NASA POWER API endpoint directly, so no registration or key is required.
What time granularities are supported?	You can choose daily, monthly, hourly, or climatology. Climatology returns long-term monthly means and ignores the start and end dates.
How do I specify locations?	Pass a JSON array of points, each with an optional name, latitude, and longitude. Latitude must be between -90 and 90, longitude between -180 and 180.
Which parameters can I retrieve?	There are 26 parameters across three communities: Renewable Energy (solar irradiance, wind, temperature), Sustainable Buildings (degree days, humidity), and Agro-climatology (precipitation, frost days). You can select any combination.
Can I get data in imperial units?	Yes. Set the units format to Imperial / English to get values in Fahrenheit, inches, miles per hour, etc. Metric (SI) is the default.
What is the maximum number of records I can get?	Free users are limited to 10 records as a preview. Paid users can set maxItems up to 1,000,000.
What date formats are accepted?	For daily and hourly, use YYYYMMDD, for example 20240101. For monthly, use YYYY, for example 2024.
Does this Actor work for any location on Earth?	Yes, NASA POWER provides global coverage, including oceans, though some parameters may have missing values in certain regions.
How is the data returned?	Each record is a flat row with the location name, latitude, longitude, date, and all requested parameters. You can export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.
Is there a cost to use NASA POWER data?	NASA POWER data is free and open to the public. You only pay for the Apify platform usage when running this Actor.

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Browse the full ParseForge collection for more scrapers.

🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NASA. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.