foehn MCP Server
io.github.kayhendriksen/foehn
Access Swiss meteorological open data from MeteoSwiss via Python API, CLI, and MCP server.
What is the foehn MCP server?
The foehn MCP server provides access to MeteoSwiss open data collections including weather stations, radar, forecasts, and climate grids. It downloads and converts tabular station data to Parquet DataFrames and opens gridded data (NetCDF, GRIB2, radar) as xarray Datasets or Zarr stores. LLMs can query Swiss weather data directly through the MCP interface.
foehn is a unified interface to 20+ MeteoSwiss open data collections. It downloads station observations, radar composites, weather forecasts, and climate scenarios, converting them to efficient columnar formats (Parquet) and scientific array formats (xarray/Zarr). The MCP server exposes this data to LLMs, enabling natural-language queries about Swiss weather and climate.
How to install foehn
Copy-paste configuration for popular MCP clients.
Tools & capabilities
Tools this server exposes to the agent.
load— Load MeteoSwiss data directly into Polars DataFrames from collections like station observations (smn), pollen, or other tabular datasets.open_dataset— Open gridded data (NetCDF climate grids, GRIB2 forecasts, ODIM radar composites) as xarray Datasets.to_zarr— Convert gridded collections to Zarr stores for efficient cloud-native access.download— Download MeteoSwiss collections incrementally to disk, converting CSVs/TXTs to Parquet and gridded data to xarray/Zarr.metadata— Inspect metadata for all 20+ MeteoSwiss collections, including time slices, stations, and available fields.
Use cases
- Query current and historical weather observations from Swiss weather stations in natural language
- Retrieve radar precipitation composites and hail maps for weather analysis
- Access climate grids and forecast data (ICON-CH1/CH2, KENDA) as xarray Datasets
- Download and convert MeteoSwiss data to Parquet for efficient storage and analysis
- Automate daily ingestion of Swiss meteorological data into data warehouses via Databricks Delta
foehn MCP server FAQ
foehn is an MCP server that gives LLMs live access to MeteoSwiss open meteorological data. It handles downloading, converting, and querying 20+ Swiss weather collections including station observations, forecasts, radar, and climate grids.
Yes, foehn is open-source (MIT license) and accesses MeteoSwiss open data, which is free and publicly available.
Add foehn to your MCP configuration with: {"mcpServers": {"foehn": {"command": "foehn", "args": ["mcp"]}}}. Install via pip install foehn[mcp].
foehn accesses MeteoSwiss open data via the STAC API (https://data.geo.admin.ch/api/stac/v1), including station observations, radar composites, forecasts, and climate scenarios.
No, MeteoSwiss open data is publicly available and requires no authentication.
foehn requires Python 3.11 or later.
README (reference)
Source of truth, from the repository.
foehn downloads every MeteoSwiss OGD collection via the STAC API, converts CSV/TXT station data to Parquet with Polars, and opens gridded collections — NetCDF climate grids, GRIB2 forecasts, and ODIM radar composites — as xarray Datasets or Zarr stores. It can optionally ingest everything into Databricks Unity Catalog Delta tables on a daily schedule, and ships an MCP server so LLMs can query Swiss weather data directly.
<p align="center"> <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kayhendriksen/foehn/main/assets/mcp_demo.png" alt="Daily weather in Bern, powered by foehn" width="700"> </p> <p align="center"> <em>Daily weather in Bern, powered by foehn's MCP server and MeteoSwiss open data.</em> </p>Why foehn?
- 20+ collections in one command — weather stations, radar, hail maps, forecasts, climate scenarios, and more
- Tabular and gridded — CSV station data as Polars DataFrames or Parquet; NetCDF, GRIB2 and ODIM radar grids as xarray Datasets or Zarr stores
- MCP server for LLMs — give your favorite LLM live access to MeteoSwiss data with the MCP server
- Significantly smaller on disk — columnar Parquet with Zstandard compression vs. raw CSVs
- Incremental by default — only re-downloads files that changed since your last run, tracked via
_last_run.json - No Spark required locally — download + conversion uses Polars only; Spark is optional for Delta ingestion
- Ships a Declarative Automation Bundle — ready-to-deploy daily job and historical backfill, no pipeline config needed
Quick start
pip install foehn
foehn download
Recent data (Jan 1 to yesterday) is downloaded and converted to Parquet under ./data/meteoswiss/.
Installation
From PyPI:
pip install foehn
From source:
git clone https://github.com/kayhendriksen/foehn
cd foehn
pip install -e .
With extras:
pip install "foehn[databricks]" # PySpark + Delta
pip install "foehn[mcp]" # MCP server
pip install "foehn[grids]" # xarray + Zarr for all gridded data (NetCDF, GRIB2, radar)
Requires Python 3.11 or later.
Python API
import foehn
df = foehn.load("smn", station="BER", frequency="d")
Load data directly into Polars DataFrames, explore metadata, download to disk, and convert to Parquet — all from Python. See the full Python API documentation.
CLI
foehn download smn pollen
foehn load smn --station BER --frequency d
The CLI mirrors the Python API with subcommands for downloading, converting, loading, and inspecting metadata. See the full CLI documentation.
Gridded data
ds = foehn.open_dataset("surface_derived_grid", match="rhiresd") # NetCDF climate grid
ds = foehn.open_dataset("forecast_icon_ch1", match="202605231500-0-t_2m-ctrl") # one GRIB2 field
ds = foehn.open_dataset("radar_precip", match="cpc2613000000") # one radar composite
foehn.to_zarr("surface_derived_grid", match="rhiresd") # Zarr store
NetCDF climate grids/normals/scenarios, GRIB2 forecasts (ICON-CH1/CH2, KENDA), and HDF5/ODIM radar composites all open as xarray Datasets instead of DataFrames. One extra covers them: pip install "foehn[grids]". See the gridded data documentation.
MCP server
{
"mcpServers": {
"foehn": {
"command": "foehn",
"args": ["mcp"]
}
}
}
Give any MCP-compatible LLM live access to MeteoSwiss data. See the full MCP server documentation.
Documentation
| Collections | All 20+ MeteoSwiss datasets, categories, and time slice conventions |
| Python API | Loading data, metadata, downloading, and Parquet conversion |
| Gridded data | NetCDF grids as xarray Datasets and Zarr stores |
| CLI | All subcommands, flags, and environment variables |
| MCP Server | Setup, configuration, and available tools |
| Databricks Pipeline | Declarative Automation Bundle deployment |
Data sources
| STAC API | https://data.geo.admin.ch/api/stac/v1 |
| Documentation | https://opendatadocs.meteoswiss.ch |
| MeteoSwiss OGD | https://github.com/MeteoSwiss/opendata |
License
MIT
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