NWS Weather Alerts Scraper

NWS Weather Alerts Scraper

Scrape active weather alerts from the National Weather Service API, filtered by state, marine zone, or severity. Every alert comes with its headline, description, affected areas, and expiration time. No API key required. Export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML.

The National Weather Service publishes real-time watches, warnings, and advisories through a public API, but querying it at scale and structuring the results for analysis takes work. This Actor reads the live alert feed, applies your area and severity filters, and returns each matching alert as a clean, flat record.\n\nIt is built for weather monitoring, emergency response dashboards, and historical alert archives.

Who uses it	What they scrape National Weather Service for
Emergency managers	Monitor active watches and warnings for their jurisdiction in one feed.
Newsroom developers	Pull live severe weather headlines for on-air graphics and website widgets.
Insurance analysts	Track extreme weather events by region to correlate with claims data.
Logistics dispatchers	Filter winter storm and flood warnings along planned delivery routes.

What it does

This Actor collects active NWS weather alerts by state, marine zone, or severity and returns each one as a flat row.

• 📍 Area filter: restrict alerts to a single two-letter state code or a marine zone.
• ⚠️ Severity filter: return only Extreme, Severe, Moderate, Minor, or Unknown alerts.
• 📦 Flat output: every alert is a single row with headline, description, area, severity, and expiration, ready for spreadsheets.

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

What you can do with National Weather Service data

📡 Build a local alert dashboard.

An emergency operations center runs the Actor every five minutes for their state code and pipes new alerts into a public-facing map.

📰 Feed a newsroom alert ticker.

A TV station scrapes severe and extreme alerts for their coverage area and pushes the headlines to a lower-third graphics system.

📊 Archive severe weather history.

A researcher collects all extreme alerts nationwide each day and stores them for a long-term study on warning frequency.

🚚 Reroute fleet operations.

A logistics team filters winter storm warnings along I-80 and flags affected shipments before drivers depart.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No API key	Reads the public NWS alert feed directly with no registration.
Live data	Pulls the current set of active alerts on every run.
Fixed schema	Every alert arrives with the same fields, no matter the event type.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets National Weather Service the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	NWS Weather Alerts Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When National Weather Service changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor from a state code or marine zone and an optional severity level, and filters run as each alert 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: $0.0085 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$0.85
1,000 results	$8.50
10,000 results	$85.00

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 NWS Weather Alerts 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 National Weather Service 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/nws-weather-alerts-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 state code is a valid two-letter abbreviation (e.g. CA, TX) and that your severity filter is not too restrictive. Try removing all filters and running with a small maxItems to confirm the feed is reachable.

The run finished but the dataset is empty.

The NWS feed may have no active alerts matching your filters at this moment. Run again without the area and severity filters to see all current alerts nationwide.

I entered a state code but got alerts from other states.

The area filter matches alerts whose affected zones include that state. A single alert can cover multiple states. Review the affected areas field in each row to confirm coverage.

The Actor is timing out.

Lower the maxItems value or narrow your filters. The NWS feed can be large during major weather events, and requesting too many records may exceed the run timeout.

Can I filter by alert type, like Tornado Warning?

The input schema does not include an event type filter. Collect the full feed for your area and filter the dataset afterward on the event or headline field.

FAQ

Question	Answer
What is the data source for these alerts?	The Actor reads the public National Weather Service API, which returns all currently active watches, warnings, and advisories for the United States and its territories.
Do I need an API key or registration?	No. The NWS alert feed is open and does not require an API key, OAuth, or account registration.
Can I filter by county or city?	The input schema supports filtering by two-letter state code or marine zone. For finer geography, you can filter the full dataset after collection using the affected zones field in each alert row.
How often does the data refresh?	The Actor pulls the live feed on every run. Schedule it on Apify for intervals as short as every few minutes to keep your dataset current.
What severity levels are available?	You can filter by Extreme, Severe, Moderate, Minor, or Unknown, or leave the filter empty to receive all active alerts regardless of severity.
Does this include marine and coastal alerts?	Yes. You can enter a marine zone code in the area filter to pull coastal flood advisories, small craft advisories, and other marine warnings.
What export formats are supported?	You can export your results to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML directly from the Apify dataset.
Can I get historical alerts?	This Actor returns only the currently active alerts. To build a historical archive, schedule regular runs and store the results in your own database.
How many alerts can I collect in one run?	You set the maximum with the 'Maximum alerts' field, up to 1,000,000 per run. The Actor stops when it reaches that limit or when no more active alerts match your filters.
What does a flat row mean?	Each alert is returned as a single record with fields like headline, description, severity, and expiration. There are no nested objects, so the data loads directly into a spreadsheet or database table.

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 National Weather Service. 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.