NASA EONET Natural Events Scraper

NASA EONET Natural Events Scraper

Scrape NASA EONET natural event records by category, status, source, magnitude, or geographic bounding box, up to a million per run. Every event comes with its geometry, dates, reporting sources, and magnitude. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

NASA's Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET) API provides a global feed of wildfires, storms, earthquakes, volcanic activity, and other natural hazards, but querying it programmatically means building pagination, filtering, and geometry handling yourself. This Actor reads the public EONET endpoints directly, applies your filters for category, status, reporting source, magnitude range, and geographic bounding box, and returns each matching event in one flat, consistent schema.\n\nIt also scrapes the EONET catalogue dimensions (categories, sources, and map layers) so you can discover what is available before you pull the event stream.

Who uses it	What they scrape NASA EONET for
Disaster response coordinators	Monitor active wildfires, floods, or storms in a specific bounding box to prioritize resource deployment.
Insurance risk analysts	Pull historical event data by category and magnitude to validate exposure models for a region.
Geospatial data engineers	Ingest EONET event geometries into a GIS pipeline for visualization or overlay analysis.
News and weather media	Automatically collect the latest open natural events to populate a breaking-news map or alert feed.

What it does

This Actor collects NASA EONET natural event records and catalogue dimensions, and returns each event as a flat row with its title, category, status, geometry, magnitude, dates, sources, and links.

• 🌍 Event records: scrape natural events filtered by category, status, source, magnitude, and bounding box.
• 📋 Catalogue discovery: enumerate EONET categories, reporting sources, and map layers to understand the data dimensions.
• 📐 Geographic filter: restrict results to a bounding box so you only see events in your area of interest.
• 📏 Magnitude range: set minimum and maximum magnitude thresholds to isolate the most significant events.
• ⏱️ Time window: limit to events with activity in the last N days to keep your dataset current.
• 🗺️ Geometry control: cap the number of waypoints per event to keep payloads small, or skip geometry entirely.

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

What you can do with NASA EONET data

🔥 Monitor active wildfires.

A disaster response team runs the Actor daily with category=wildfires, status=open, and a bounding box over their jurisdiction to get a list of active fires with coordinates and magnitudes.

🌊 Track severe storms in the Atlantic.

An insurance analyst pulls events with category=severeStorms, source=NOAA_NHC, and days=7 to feed a weekly exposure report for coastal properties.

📊 Build a global natural-hazard dashboard.

A geospatial engineer scrapes all open events across every category, caps geometry at 500 points, and loads the results into a PostGIS database for a public-facing map.

🗂️ Discover available EONET data sources.

A researcher runs the Actor in sources catalogue mode to get the full list of reporting organizations before designing a filtered event collection.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	Reads the public NASA EONET endpoints with no registration or authentication.
Fixed schema	Every event returns the same flat fields: title, category, status, geometry, magnitude, dates, sources, and links.
Catalogue modes	Scrape categories, sources, and layers separately to explore the EONET taxonomy before pulling events.
Geographic filter	Pass a bounding box to get only events whose latest location falls inside your region.
Magnitude filtering	Set min and max magnitude to isolate events above a severity threshold for your use case.

How it compares

This Actor and the alternative NASA EONET Events Scraper both pull from the same public EONET endpoints, but they differ in the filtering and catalogue capabilities they expose.

Feature	ParseForge	NASA EONET Events Scraper - Natural Events
Filter by event category	Yes, 14 categories including wildfires, earthquakes, and volcanoes	Yes
Filter by reporting source	Yes, over 30 sources including USGS, NOAA, and CAL FIRE	Not listed
Filter by magnitude range	Yes, min and max magnitude thresholds	Not listed
Geographic bounding box filter	Yes	Not listed
Catalogue discovery modes	Yes, scrape categories, sources, and layers separately	Not listed
Geometry point capping	Yes, configurable from 0 to 5000 points	Not listed

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from event category, status, reporting source, magnitude range, days-back window, and a geographic bounding box, and filters run as each event is read so only matches reach your dataset. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
  "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.032 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$3.20
1,000 results	$32.00
10,000 results	$320.00

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 EONET Natural Events 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 EONET 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/eonet-natural-events-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 filters are not too restrictive. A bounding box combined with a narrow days-back window and a specific source may return zero events. Try broadening one filter at a time to see which constraint is eliminating results.

Why is the geometry array so large?

Long-duration events like hurricanes or large wildfires can have thousands of track points. Lower the max geometry points setting to cap the array to the most recent points, or set it to zero to skip geometry entirely and reduce payload size.

The magnitude filter is not working as I expected.

Magnitude units are category-dependent. For example, wildfires use acres while storms use knots. A magnitude-min of 1000 will behave differently for a volcano than for a flood. Check the EONET documentation for the unit associated with your category.

I am getting events outside my bounding box.

The bounding box filter checks only the latest reported location of an event. A storm that started outside your box but moved inside will be included. If you need strict containment, filter the geometry points in post-processing.

Why are some events missing magnitude values?

Not every EONET event has a reported magnitude. The magnitude field will be null when the reporting source did not provide one. The magnitude filter skips events with null magnitudes, so they will not appear when you set a min or max.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Do I need a NASA API key to use this Actor?	No. This Actor reads the public, unauthenticated NASA EONET endpoints. You do not need to register an application or provide any credentials.
What natural event categories are available?	The Actor supports all EONET categories: drought, dust and haze, earthquakes, floods, landslides, manmade, sea and lake ice, severe storms, snow, temperature extremes, volcanoes, water color, and wildfires. You can also run the Actor in categories catalogue mode to get the current list from the API.
Can I filter events by location?	Yes. Provide a bounding box in the format minLon,minLat,maxLon,maxLat (for example, -125,24,-66,49 for the contiguous United States) and only events whose latest reported location falls inside that box will be returned.
How do I filter by event severity?	Use the minimum and maximum magnitude inputs. Magnitude units depend on the event category (acres for wildfires, knots for storms, etc.). Set both to narrow a range, or set only one to apply a floor or ceiling.
What does the geometry field contain?	Each event includes a geometry array of longitude-latitude points and dates tracing its path. Long-running events like hurricanes can accumulate thousands of points. Use the max geometry points setting to cap the array or set it to zero to omit geometry entirely.
Can I get only currently active events?	Yes. Set the status filter to 'Open' and the Actor will return only events that are still active according to EONET. Set it to 'Closed' for ended events, or 'All' for both.
How far back can I pull events?	Use the days-back input to limit results to events with activity in the last N days (up to 365). Leave it empty to retrieve events with no time restriction.
What are the catalogue modes for?	Switch the mode to Categories, Sources, or Layers to scrape the EONET catalogue dimensions. This gives you the full list of available categories, reporting sources, and map layers so you can discover what is in the system before you pull event data.
Can I filter by a specific reporting source?	Yes. Choose from over 30 sources including USGS, NOAA National Hurricane Center, CAL FIRE, and the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System. The Actor will return only events reported by that source.
What output formats are supported?	You can export your dataset to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML directly from the Apify platform.

Related actors

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.