# noaa-cdo-mcp-server [Health: Active] **Category:** πŸ’» Developer Tools **Repository:** https://github.com/cyanheads/noaa-cdo-mcp-server **GitHub Stars:** 4 **Views:** 0 **Installs:** 0 **Upvotes:** 0 **Directory Page:** https://allmcps.com/mcp/noaa-cdo-mcp-server ## Description Search NOAA CDO stations and datasets, fetch historical weather observations. ## Claude Desktop Quick Installation Install path detected from listing signals. Uses `bunx` (confidence: high): ```json "mcpServers": { "noaa-cdo-mcp-server": { "command": "bunx", "args": ["@cyanheads/noaa-climate-mcp-server@latest"] } } ``` ## Documentation & README

@cyanheads/noaa-climate-mcp-server

Search NOAA climate stations and datasets, fetch historical weather observations via MCP. STDIO or Streamable HTTP.

10 Tools β€’ 2 Resources

[![Version](https://img.shields.io/badge/Version-0.6.2-blue.svg?style=flat-square)](./CHANGELOG.md) [![License](https://img.shields.io/badge/License-Apache%202.0-orange.svg?style=flat-square)](./LICENSE) [![Docker](https://img.shields.io/badge/Docker-ghcr.io-2496ED?style=flat-square&logo=docker&logoColor=white)](https://github.com/users/cyanheads/packages/container/package/noaa-climate-mcp-server) [![MCP SDK](https://img.shields.io/badge/MCP%20SDK-^2.0.0-green.svg?style=flat-square)](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/) [![npm](https://img.shields.io/npm/v/@cyanheads/noaa-climate-mcp-server?style=flat-square&logo=npm&logoColor=white)](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@cyanheads/noaa-climate-mcp-server) [![TypeScript](https://img.shields.io/badge/TypeScript-^7.0.2-3178C6.svg?style=flat-square)](https://www.typescriptlang.org/) [![Bun](https://img.shields.io/badge/Bun-v1.3.0-blueviolet.svg?style=flat-square)](https://bun.sh/)
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**Public Hosted Server:** [https://noaa-climate.caseyjhand.com/mcp](https://noaa-climate.caseyjhand.com/mcp)
--- ## Tools 10 tools β€” 8 over the NOAA Climate Data Online (CDO) API v2, plus two over separate NCEI bulk-CSV corpora: severe-weather event search over the Storm Events Database, and disaster costs over Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: | Tool | Description | |:---|:---| | `noaa_climate_list_datasets` | List available CDO datasets with IDs, names, and temporal coverage | | `noaa_climate_list_data_categories` | List data category groups (Temperature, Precipitation, Wind, etc.) | | `noaa_climate_list_data_types` | List specific measurement labels (TMAX, TMIN, PRCP, SNOW, etc.) by dataset or category | | `noaa_climate_list_location_categories` | List the 12 location categories that scope location search | | `noaa_climate_find_locations` | Search geographic locations by category (states, cities, counties, zip codes, climate regions), with an optional name filter | | `noaa_climate_find_stations` | Search weather stations by location, bounding box, dataset, and data type | | `noaa_climate_get_station` | Fetch full metadata for a single station by ID | | `noaa_climate_fetch_data` | Fetch historical observation records for a dataset and date range | | `noaa_climate_search_storm_events` | Search the NCEI Storm Events Database for one year β€” tornadoes, hail, floods, hurricanes, with damage, casualties, and narratives | | `noaa_climate_get_billion_dollar_disasters` | Query NOAA's Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters β€” CPI-adjusted costs and deaths per disaster, or per-year totals by disaster class | ### `noaa_climate_list_datasets` List all available NOAA CDO datasets β€” approximately 11 in total. - Returns dataset IDs, names, data coverage fraction, and temporal range - No required parameters β€” returns everything by default - Optionally filter by data type, location, station, or date range - Common datasets: GHCND (daily, 1763–present), GSOM (monthly), GSOY (annual), NORMAL_DLY/MLY/ANN/HLY (1981–2010 climate normals) - Start here to orient before calling `noaa_climate_fetch_data` --- ### `noaa_climate_list_data_categories` List data category groups that organize related measurement types. - ~41 categories including Temperature, Precipitation, Wind, Pressure, Sunshine, Sky cover, Weather Type - Optionally filter by dataset, location, station, or date range - Use before `noaa_climate_list_data_types` to narrow by measurement domain --- ### `noaa_climate_list_data_types` List specific measurement labels for a dataset or category. - Hundreds of data types across all datasets - Filter by dataset (e.g., `GHCND`) or category (e.g., `TEMP`) to narrow results - Common GHCND types: `TMAX` (max temperature), `TMIN` (min temperature), `PRCP` (precipitation), `SNOW` (snowfall), `SNWD` (snow depth), `AWND` (average wind speed) - Returns ID, name, coverage fraction, and date range per type --- ### `noaa_climate_list_location_categories` List the location categories that scope `noaa_climate_find_locations` β€” 12 in total. - Returns category IDs (`CITY`, `ST`, `CNTY`, `CNTRY`, `ZIP`, `US_TERR`, `CLIM_REG`, `CLIM_DIV`, `HYD_ACC`, `HYD_CAT`, `HYD_REG`, `HYD_SUB`) and their names - Call it when you do not know which `locationCategoryId` to pass - Pagination and sort only β€” the CDO endpoint ignores dataset, location, station, and date filters, so none are offered --- ### `noaa_climate_find_locations` Search geographic locations by category. - Category types: `ST` (US states, 51), `CNTY` (counties), `CITY` (cities), `CNTRY` (countries), `ZIP` (zip codes), `US_TERR` (US territories), `CLIM_REG` (NOAA climate regions), `CLIM_DIV` (climate divisions), hydrological categories β€” `noaa_climate_list_location_categories` returns the authoritative set - Use `locationCategoryId=ST` to list all states in one call - `nameContains` gives the name search the CDO API lacks: the server enumerates the requested category and matches the substring case-insensitively, so `locationCategoryId=CITY` with `nameContains=seattle` resolves a city in one call. It is a size rule, not a category list β€” the category must hold at most 4,000 locations, which is every category but `ZIP` (30,415), and a `datasetId` or `datacategoryId` filter can bring a larger one back under the limit. Past it, page alphabetically with `sortField=name` - Returns location IDs (`FIPS:37`, `CITY:US530018`, `ZIP:98101`) used in station search and data queries --- ### `noaa_climate_find_stations` Search weather observation stations. - Filter by location ID, bounding box (lat/lon), dataset, data type, and date range - Returns station IDs, names, coordinates, elevation, and data coverage dates - A station must have data for the dataset and date range you want β€” pass `datasetId` and date range to ensure compatibility - Common station ID formats: `GHCND:USW00024233`, `COOP:010008` - Station IDs returned here feed directly into `noaa_climate_fetch_data` --- ### `noaa_climate_get_station` Fetch full metadata for a single weather station by ID. - Returns name, coordinates (decimal degrees), elevation, and full data coverage date range - Use to verify a station before querying data, or to check its temporal coverage - Mirrors the `noaa://stations/{stationId}` resource as a direct lookup --- ### `noaa_climate_fetch_data` Fetch historical observation records from a NOAA CDO dataset. - Requires `datasetId`, `startDate`, and `endDate`; optionally scoped by station, location, and data type - **Date range limits:** sub-daily, daily, and radar datasets (GHCND, PRECIP_15, PRECIP_HLY, NORMAL_DLY, NORMAL_HLY, NEXRAD2, NEXRAD3) β€” 1 year max per request; monthly and annual datasets (GSOM, GSOY, NORMAL_MLY, NORMAL_ANN) β€” 10 years max - **Unit selection:** strongly recommended β€” pass `units=metric` (SI) or `units=standard` (Fahrenheit/inches). Without it, GHCND values are raw tenths-of-unit integers (TMAX=256 = 25.6Β°C, PRCP=12 = 1.2mm); GSOM/GSOY are already scaled - **Climate normals:** for any NORMAL_* dataset, use `startDate=2010-01-01` and `endDate=2010-12-31` β€” that is the API proxy year regardless of which 30-year period is described - Returns flat tuples of `{ date, datatype, station, value, attributes }` with pagination metadata --- ### `noaa_climate_search_storm_events` Search the NCEI Storm Events Database β€” a different NOAA corpus from the CDO tools above. - Discrete severe-weather events (tornado, hail, flood, hurricane, winter storm, heat, and every other NWS Storm Data type) rather than station observations, back to 1950 - Returns event type, state and county/zone, begin and end times, magnitude, tornado F/EF scale with track length and width, direct and indirect deaths and injuries, property and crop damage, and the episode and event narratives - **No token required** β€” this corpus is published as bulk CSV, not through CDO, so `NOAA_CDO_TOKEN` is irrelevant to this tool - **`year` is required.** NCEI publishes one gzip file per year (~12 MB, ~70k events for a recent year), so an unscoped search would download every year back to 1950 - **`state` takes the full name NCEI writes** β€” `"FLORIDA"`, not `"FL"`. `eventType` is matched case-insensitively against the exact NWS label (`"Tornado"`, `"Flash Flood"`, `"Hurricane (Typhoon)"`); a miss comes back with the labels that year actually contains - **Damage is honest about what NCEI reported.** Values arrive as magnitude-suffixed strings (`"75.00K"`, `"1.20M"`, `"1.00B"`) and are returned as both the raw cell and a parsed dollar amount. An unreported figure β€” about a fifth of a recent year β€” is omitted entirely rather than reported as `0`, so it can never be read as confirmed zero damage. `minDamageInUsd` therefore excludes those rows and reports how many it dropped - **Filenames are discovered, never constructed.** Each year's file carries a publish-date suffix that changes when NCEI republishes it, so the tool reads the directory index every time its cache lapses - The server caches two years of compressed bytes for six hours β€” under 30 MB, since a bundle runs 12 MB for a recent year and 15 MB for the largest (2011). Each search streams the decompression, so the ~70 MB decompressed form is never materialized. That bounds what is *retained*, not peak memory: the transient chunks still cost headroom, and a cold full-year 2024 scan measured 129 MB RSS at baseline against a 269 MB peak --- ### `noaa_climate_get_billion_dollar_disasters` Query NOAA/NCEI's [Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters](https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/) β€” the curated record of US weather and climate disasters whose damage passed $1 billion. - Two shapes from one tool: individual disasters by default (name, class, span, CPI-adjusted and unadjusted cost, deaths), or `summary=true` for per-year counts and costs by disaster class plus an `All Disasters` total - Seven disaster classes, written exactly as NCEI writes them: `Drought`, `Flooding`, `Freeze`, `Severe Storm`, `Tropical Cyclone`, `Wildfire`, `Winter Storm`. `disasterType` rejects any other spelling rather than coercing it - **No token required** β€” this corpus is published as static CSV, not through CDO - **Every cost is in whole US dollars.** NCEI does not use one unit across these exports: the per-event file states millions, the national per-year file states billions, and a per-state per-year file states millions again. The server reads the unit each file declares in its own preamble, converts once, and reports what it read back as `declaredCostUnit`. Conflating the two would misreport by a factor of 1,000 while still looking plausible β€” Hurricane Helene is `78721` in a millions file, which is $78.7 billion, not $78,721 billion - **Coverage is whatever NCEI has finished assessing**, not the current calendar year β€” `coveredYears` reports the span actually present (1980–2024 as of writing). A query for this year returns nothing rather than an error - `startYear`/`endYear` match by overlap, so a disaster running across a New Year is returned from either side of it - **A `state` scope reads NCEI's per-state exports and behaves differently in two ways.** Its per-event rows are national disasters that reached that state and carry the **national** cost, never a state share β€” summing states double-counts, which the response says for itself with `costBasis: "national"`. Its per-year rows carry a binned cost range (`costRangeInUsd`) instead of the point estimate and 75/90/95% confidence bands the national export publishes - Not every two-letter code has an export: the 50 states, DC, PR, VI, and GU do; AS and MP do not, and a code without one fails with `unknown_state` rather than silently falling back to national totals --- ## Resources | Type | Name | Description | |:---|:---|:---| | Resource | `noaa://datasets` | All CDO datasets with IDs and temporal coverage β€” injectable context for orienting an agent before querying data | | Resource | `noaa://stations/{stationId}` | Station metadata by ID β€” name, coordinates, elevation, and data coverage date range | ## Features Built on [`@cyanheads/mcp-ts-core`](https://github.com/cyanheads/mcp-ts-core): - Declarative tool definitions β€” single file per tool, framework handles registration and validation - Unified error handling across all tools - Pluggable auth (`none`, `jwt`, `oauth`) - Swappable storage backends: `in-memory`, `filesystem`, `Supabase`, `Cloudflare KV/R2/D1` - Structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing - Runs locally (stdio/HTTP) or on Cloudflare Workers from the same codebase NOAA CDO-specific: - Full CDO API v2 coverage β€” datasets, data categories, data types, locations, stations, and observations - Client-side date range validation with per-dataset limits enforced before hitting the API - Unit normalization via the CDO `units` parameter β€” avoids raw tenths-of-unit integer confusion - CDO's own rejection message is recovered and surfaced: an over-long date range, a malformed date, a missing parameter, and an over-large `limit` each report the reason CDO gave, instead of an identical bare status line - Retry with exponential backoff for transient API failures Agent-friendly output: - Paginated results across all list and search tools β€” `limit`, `offset`, and total count in every response - Station and dataset IDs flow naturally between tools β€” find a location, find stations in it, fetch data from those stations - Structured error contracts with `reason` codes and recovery hints β€” agents can branch on data, not string parsing - Dataset and station resources for injectable, zero-fetch context ## Getting started ### Self-Hosted / Local Add the following to your MCP client configuration file. ```json { "mcpServers": { "noaa-climate-mcp-server": { "type": "stdio", "command": "bunx", "args": ["@cyanheads/noaa-climate-mcp-server@latest"], "env": { "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio", "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info", "NOAA_CDO_TOKEN": "your-token-here" } } } } ``` Or with npx (no Bun required): ```json { "mcpServers": { "noaa-climate-mcp-server": { "type": "stdio", "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/noaa-climate-mcp-server@latest"], "env": { "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio", "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info", "NOAA_CDO_TOKEN": "your-token-here" } } } } ``` Or with Docker: ```json { "mcpServers": { "noaa-climate-mcp-server": { "type": "stdio", "command": "docker", "args": ["run", "-i", "--rm", "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio", "-e", "NOAA_CDO_TOKEN=your-token-here", "ghcr.io/cyanheads/noaa-climate-mcp-server:latest"] } } } ``` For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server: ```sh MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 NOAA_CDO_TOKEN=your-token-here bun run start:http # Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp ``` ### Prerequisites - [Bun v1.3.0](https://bun.sh/) or higher (or Node.js β‰₯24.0.0). - A free [NOAA CDO API token](https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/token) β€” required for all requests. ### Installation 1. **Clone the repository:** ```sh git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/noaa-climate-mcp-server.git ``` 2. **Navigate into the directory:** ```sh cd noaa-climate-mcp-server ``` 3. **Install dependencies:** ```sh bun install ``` ## Configuration All configuration is validated at startup via Zod schemas in `src/config/server-config.ts`. Key environment variables: | Variable | Description | Default | |:---|:---|:---| | `NOAA_CDO_TOKEN` | **Required.** NOAA CDO API token β€” obtain free at [ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/token](https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/token) | β€” | | `MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE` | Transport: `stdio` or `http` | `stdio` | | `MCP_HTTP_PORT` | HTTP server port | `3010` | | `MCP_HTTP_ENDPOINT_PATH` | HTTP endpoint path where the MCP server is mounted | `/mcp` | | `MCP_PUBLIC_URL` | Public origin override for TLS-terminating reverse-proxy deployments | none | | `MCP_AUTH_MODE` | Authentication: `none`, `jwt`, or `oauth` | `none` | | `MCP_LOG_LEVEL` | Log level (`debug`, `info`, `warning`, `error`, etc.) | `info` | | `MCP_GC_PRESSURE_INTERVAL_MS` | Opt-in Bun-only forced-GC pressure loop (ms). Try `60000` if heap growth is observed under sustained HTTP load. | `0` (disabled) | | `STORAGE_PROVIDER_TYPE` | Storage backend: `in-memory`, `filesystem`, `supabase`, `cloudflare-kv/r2/d1` | `in-memory` | | `OTEL_ENABLED` | Enable OpenTelemetry | `false` | ## Running the server ### Local development - **Build and run the production version**: ```sh # One-time build bun run rebuild # Run the built server bun run start:http # or bun run start:stdio ``` - **Run checks and tests**: ```sh bun run devcheck # Lints, formats, type-checks, and more bun run test # Runs the test suite bun run test:live # Opt-in: resolves every documented example identifier against the live CDO API ``` ## Project structure | Directory | Purpose | |:---|:---| | `src/mcp-server/tools` | Tool definitions (`*.tool.ts`). Ten tools across datasets, locations, stations, observations, storm events, and disaster costs. | | `src/mcp-server/resources` | Resource definitions. Datasets catalog and station metadata resources. | | `src/services/cdo` | CDO HTTP client with retry, backoff, camelCaseβ†’lowercase parameter translation, and recovery of CDO's own rejection message. | | `src/services/csv` | Incremental RFC 4180 CSV reader shared by the two NCEI bulk-CSV corpora. | | `src/services/storm-events` | NCEI Storm Events bulk-CSV client β€” filename discovery, streamed decompression, damage parsing. | | `src/services/billion-dollar-disasters` | NCEI Billion-Dollar Disasters client β€” declared-unit resolution and conversion to whole US dollars. | | `src/config` | Server-specific environment variable parsing and validation with Zod. | | `tests/` | Unit and integration tests, mirroring the `src/` structure. | ## Development guide See [`CLAUDE.md`](https://github.com/cyanheads/noaa-cdo-mcp-server/blob/HEAD/CLAUDE.md) for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version: - Handlers throw, framework catches β€” no `try/catch` in tool logic - Use `ctx.log` for logging, `ctx.state` for storage - Register new tools and resources in the `createApp()` arrays - Wrap external API calls as validate raw β†’ normalize to domain types β†’ return the output schema; never fabricate missing fields ## Contributing Issues and pull requests are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting: ```sh bun run devcheck bun run test ``` ## License This project is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. See the [LICENSE](https://github.com/cyanheads/noaa-cdo-mcp-server/blob/HEAD/LICENSE) file for details.