☀️ NASA POWER Solar & Weather Data Scraper

🚀 Export NASA satellite-derived solar, weather, and renewable-energy data for any point on Earth. 26 parameters, 4 temporal granularities, 45+ years of history (1981 to present). No login, no quota juggling, no parser engineering.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-21 · 📊 13 fields per record · 🌍 global coverage · 📡 45+ years of NASA satellite data · ☀️ 26 parameters across solar, weather, and agro-climate

The NASA POWER Scraper turns NASA's Prediction Of Worldwide Energy Resources dataset into clean records you can drop into a solar feasibility model, irrigation schedule, climate study, or HVAC sizing tool. Each output row carries the location, elevation, time period, and the parameter values you requested. POWER is maintained by NASA Langley Research Center and is the same dataset cited in thousands of renewable-energy and agro-climate papers.

Coverage spans the entire globe at 0.5° x 0.5° resolution (down to 0.25° for some products), with daily values from 1981, monthly values from 1981, climatological long-term means, and hourly values from 2001. Parameters include shortwave and longwave irradiance, direct-normal and diffuse components, air and surface temperature, dew point, wet-bulb, humidity, wind speed and direction at 2 m / 10 m / 50 m, surface pressure, precipitation, heating and cooling degree days, and frost days.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
Solar developers, agri-tech engineers, climate researchers, HVAC and building-science teams, EV charging planners, wind analysts, civil engineers, GIS analysts	Solar siting and yield modelling, evapotranspiration calculations, climate normals, building-load simulations, wind resource scoping, drought monitoring

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📋 What the NASA POWER Scraper does

Four temporal modes plus multi-point batch:

• ☀️ Daily values. One record per day per location, 1981 to present.
• 📅 Monthly values. One record per month per location, 1981 to present.
• 🌐 Climatology. Long-term monthly and annual means.
• ⏰ Hourly values. One record per hour per location, 2001 to present.
• 📍 Multi-point batch. Pass an array of lat/lng pairs to pull every location in one run.

Pick the community (Renewable Energy, Sustainable Buildings, or Agro-climatology) and the parameters you need from a catalog of 26 variables. Units are switchable between metric (SI) and imperial.

💡 Why it matters: building a solar or climate model means stitching together gridded climate sources, handling missing-value sentinels, converting units, and rebuilding the loader every time NASA versions the dataset. This Actor returns flat, unit-tagged records every run.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to pull a year of irradiance for 50 solar sites in one run.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Records to return. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan at 1,000,000.
points	array	Phoenix + Berlin	Array of { name, latitude, longitude }. Each location is queried in turn.
temporal	string	"daily"	One of daily, monthly, climatology, hourly.
start	string	"20240101"	Start date. YYYYMMDD for daily/hourly, YYYY for monthly. Ignored for climatology.
end	string	"20240131"	End date. Same format as start.
community	string	"RE"	Parameter community: RE (Renewable Energy), SB (Sustainable Buildings), AG (Agro-climatology).
parameters	array	7 RE defaults	Pick from 26 community-specific parameters.
unitsFormat	string	"METRIC"	Metric (SI) or Imperial.

Example: full year of solar irradiance for three U.S. cities.

{
    "maxItems": 1100,
    "points": [
        { "name": "Phoenix, AZ", "latitude": 33.4484, "longitude": -112.074 },
        { "name": "Denver, CO", "latitude": 39.7392, "longitude": -104.9903 },
        { "name": "Boston, MA", "latitude": 42.3601, "longitude": -71.0589 }
    ],
    "temporal": "daily",
    "start": "20240101",
    "end": "20241231",
    "community": "RE",
    "parameters": ["ALLSKY_SFC_SW_DWN", "ALLSKY_SFC_SW_DNI", "T2M_MAX", "T2M_MIN"]
}

Example: climatological long-term means for an agricultural site.

{
    "maxItems": 12,
    "points": [{ "name": "Iowa Farm", "latitude": 41.5868, "longitude": -93.625 }],
    "temporal": "climatology",
    "community": "AG",
    "parameters": ["T2M", "PRECTOTCORR", "RH2M"]
}

⚠️ Good to Know: NASA POWER returns satellite- and model-derived values on a coarse grid. Values are excellent for siting, modelling, and historical analysis, but should not replace on-site measurements for safety-critical engineering decisions.

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📊 Output

Each record contains 14 fields including a nested parameters object with the values you requested. Download the dataset as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
🏙️ name	string | null	"Phoenix, AZ"
📍 latitude	number	33.4484
📍 longitude	number	-112.074
⛰️ elevation	number | null	337.5
⏱️ temporal	string	"daily"
📅 period	string	"20240101"
🗓️ date	string	"2024-01-01"
☀️ parameters	object	{"T2M": 4.98, "ALLSKY_SFC_SW_DWN": 4.21}
🌐 community	string	"RE"
📏 unitsFormat	string	"METRIC"
🔗 sourceUrl	string	"https://power.larc.nasa.gov/data-access-viewer/"
🕒 scrapedAt	ISO 8601	"2026-05-20T20:56:18.055Z"
⚠️ error	string | null	null

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
☀️	26 parameters. Irradiance components, temperature, wind, humidity, precipitation, degree days, frost days.
🌍	Global coverage. Any latitude / longitude on Earth, no regional gaps.
📡	Deep history. Daily values from 1981, hourly from 2001, climatologies derived from the full record.
🎯	Multi-point batch. Process dozens of sites in one run, no per-location wiring.
📏	Unit-aware. Metric (SI) and imperial output without manual conversion.
🔁	Fresh data. Every run hits the live source; new days appear as NASA processes them.
🚫	No login. No API key or registration required to pull the data.

📊 The same dataset cited in thousands of solar, wind, and agro-climate papers, delivered as flat rows.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Parameters	Setup
⭐ NASA POWER Scraper (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	Global, 1981+	Live per run	26 across 3 communities	⚡ 2 min
On-site weather stations	$1k+/site, ongoing	Single point	Real-time	Limited	🛠️ Days
Commercial climate services	$5k+/year	Region-specific	Hourly	Many	🕒 Days
Direct NASA dataset downloads	Free	Global	Manual	All	🐢 Steep learning curve

Pick this Actor when you want satellite-derived climate inputs for many locations without standing up a GIS stack.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the NASA POWER Solar & Weather Data Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pass your point list, pick a temporal mode, choose parameters and a date range.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start and let the Actor query NASA for every location.
5. 📥 Download. Grab your results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to a downloaded climate dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

☀️ Solar Developers & EPCs Site irradiance and degradation modelling Direct-normal vs global feeds for tracker vs fixed-tilt Long-term resource maps for portfolio underwriting Year-one yield checks against P50 expectations	🌾 Agri-tech & Precision Farming Evapotranspiration with temperature and humidity Growing-degree-day calculations Frost-risk monitoring per field Rain anomaly detection vs climatology
🏢 Buildings & HVAC Heating- and cooling-degree-day datasets for ASHRAE work Climate inputs for energy-use intensity benchmarks Wind data for facade and natural-ventilation studies Solar gain estimates for shading design	🚗 EV, Wind & Climate Research 50-m wind speeds for siting reconnaissance Charging-load forecasting under temperature stress Climate trend studies with 40+ years of history Reproducible weather inputs for ML feature stores

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🔌 Automating NASA POWER Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically for scheduled runs and pipeline integrations:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval. Daily updates keep solar dashboards, irrigation models, and weather risk monitors current.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

The same dataset supports research, teaching, civic projects, and citizen science.

🎓 Research and academia Reproducible climate inputs for academic papers Geography and atmospheric-science teaching datasets Long-period trend analysis for masters and PhD work Multi-site case studies on regional climate signals	🎨 Personal and creative Backyard solar-array yield estimators Vacation weather histories for travel planners Educational dashboards for science classrooms Custom climate visualisations for blogs and zines
🤝 Non-profit and civic Drought-monitoring tools for water districts Climate-vulnerability mapping for adaptation NGOs Disaster-response planning with frost and wind data Energy-access feasibility studies in remote areas	🧪 Experimentation Train weather-forecasting ML baselines Benchmark satellite vs ground-station accuracy Build agent pipelines that fetch climate features on demand Prototype climate-aware product recommendations

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

You pass an array of lat/lng points, pick a temporal granularity (daily, monthly, climatology, hourly) and a parameter list, and the Actor queries NASA POWER for each location and emits one record per time bucket.

📏 How accurate is the data?

POWER is derived from MERRA-2 reanalysis and CERES satellite observations. Values are excellent for resource assessment, historical analysis, and modelling, but they are gridded estimates and should be combined with on-site instruments for safety-critical engineering.

🔁 How often is the dataset refreshed?

NASA processes new days continuously with a lag of a few days to weeks depending on the product. Each run of this Actor pulls the live values.

📅 How far back does the data go?

Daily and monthly values start in 1981. Hourly values start in 2001. Climatologies summarise the full reference period.

🌍 What about coverage?

POWER is global on a 0.5° x 0.5° grid for most products. There are no regional gaps.

☀️ Which parameters are available?

26 across three communities: shortwave and longwave irradiance, direct-normal and diffuse, air temperature (mean, max, min, dew, wet bulb), surface temperature, humidity, precipitation, wind speed and direction at 2 m / 10 m / 50 m, surface pressure, cooling and heating degree days, frost days, and clearness indices.

💼 Can I use this data commercially?

NASA POWER is U.S. government open data and may be redistributed under the standard NASA citation policy. Review the source terms for your specific use case.

⏰ Can I schedule regular runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules for daily or weekly refreshes that keep solar and climate dashboards current.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free Apify plan covers testing and small runs. Paid plans unlock larger datasets, scheduling, and concurrency.

🔁 What happens if a run fails?

Apify automatically retries transient errors. Partial datasets from failed runs are preserved so you can fix the input and re-run.

🆘 What if I need help?

Our support team is here to help. Contact us through the Apify platform or use the Tally form linked below.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

NASA POWER Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications in your channels
• Airbyte - Pipe climate data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits and releases
• Google Drive - Export datasets straight to Sheets

You can also use webhooks to trigger downstream actions when a run finishes. Push fresh climate inputs into your forecasting backend, or alert your operations team in Slack on threshold breaches.

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💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more open-data scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NASA, NASA Langley Research Center, or any government agency. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly available open climate data is collected.