PluginBench
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MIT

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.

transport: stdio
Config generated by PluginBench — verify against the source before use.
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "foehn": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": [
        "foehn",
        "mcp"
      ]
    }
  }
}

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

What is the foehn MCP server?

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.

Is foehn free to use?

Yes, foehn is open-source (MIT license) and accesses MeteoSwiss open data, which is free and publicly available.

How do I install foehn in Cursor or Claude?

Add foehn to your MCP configuration with: {"mcpServers": {"foehn": {"command": "foehn", "args": ["mcp"]}}}. Install via pip install foehn[mcp].

What data sources does foehn access?

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.

Does foehn require authentication?

No, MeteoSwiss open data is publicly available and requires no authentication.

What Python versions does foehn support?

foehn requires Python 3.11 or later.

README (reference)

Source of truth, from the repository.

<h1 align="center"> <img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kayhendriksen/foehn/main/assets/banner.svg" alt="foehn" width="600"> </h1> <p align="center"> <strong>MeteoSwiss Open Data — Python API, CLI & MCP server · tabular as DataFrames/Parquet, gridded as xarray/Zarr</strong> </p> <p align="center"> <a href="https://pypi.org/project/foehn/"> <img src="https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/foehn.svg" alt="PyPI Latest Release"> </a> <a href="https://pypi.org/project/foehn/"> <img src="https://img.shields.io/pypi/pyversions/foehn.svg" alt="Python Versions"> </a> <a href="https://github.com/kayhendriksen/foehn/blob/main/LICENSE"> <img src="https://img.shields.io/badge/license-MIT-blue.svg" alt="MIT License"> </a> <a href="https://scorecard.dev/viewer/?uri=github.com/kayhendriksen/foehn"> <img src="https://api.scorecard.dev/projects/github.com/kayhendriksen/foehn/badge" alt="OpenSSF Scorecard"> </a> <a href="https://pypi.org/project/foehn/"> <img src="https://img.shields.io/pypi/dm/foehn.svg" alt="Monthly Downloads"> </a> </p>

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/.

<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kayhendriksen/foehn/main/assets/cli_demo.gif" alt="foehn CLI demo" width="800">

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

CollectionsAll 20+ MeteoSwiss datasets, categories, and time slice conventions
Python APILoading data, metadata, downloading, and Parquet conversion
Gridded dataNetCDF grids as xarray Datasets and Zarr stores
CLIAll subcommands, flags, and environment variables
MCP ServerSetup, configuration, and available tools
Databricks PipelineDeclarative Automation Bundle deployment

Data sources

STAC APIhttps://data.geo.admin.ch/api/stac/v1
Documentationhttps://opendatadocs.meteoswiss.ch
MeteoSwiss OGDhttps://github.com/MeteoSwiss/opendata

License

MIT

<!-- mcp-name: io.github.kayhendriksen/foehn -->

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