Hosted MCPUtility

OpenWeather MCP Server

Current weather and 5-day forecast for any location, powered by the free OpenWeatherMap API.

Setup

1 field · 1 secret

Credentials are injected into an ephemeral sandbox at boot and destroyed with it.

Runtime

Light — starts in seconds

Sessions run up to 60 minutes before the sandbox is reclaimed.

Models

60+ AI models

Chat with 60+ AI models on the same workflow — switch to a different model mid-conversation and re-run the same prompt, or use Compare mode to put several side-by-side.

What the OpenWeather MCP server does

How models use it and what it is built for.

The OpenWeather MCP server gives a model current conditions and a 5-day forecast for any location on earth, backed by the OpenWeatherMap API.

It is the cleanest example of why MCP exists. A language model cannot know the weather — it is not in the training data and never will be. One small tool call closes that gap completely, and the pattern generalises to every other piece of live data an agent needs.

It is also the server most worth building against first. The free tier is generous, setup is a single API key, and failures are obvious rather than subtle.

What a model can do with it

Concrete operations exposed as tools.

  • Current conditions for any city, coordinate pair or postcode
  • 5-day forecast in 3-hour intervals
  • Temperature, feels-like, humidity, pressure and wind
  • Conditions summary — rain, snow, cloud cover
  • Sunrise and sunset times
  • Comparison across multiple locations in one conversation

How to set up the OpenWeather MCP server

In order. Each step assumes the previous one worked.

  1. 01

    Get a free API key

    Register at openweathermap.org/api and copy the key from the API keys tab. The free tier covers 60 calls a minute, which is far more than an agent conversation needs.

  2. 02

    Wait for activation

    This trips up nearly everyone: a brand-new OpenWeatherMap key can take up to a couple of hours to become active. Until then every call returns 401. If your first attempt fails, wait rather than regenerating the key.

  3. 03

    Provide the key

    Paste it into the API key field. It is stored as a secret and injected into the sandbox at boot.

  4. 04

    Test with a known city

    Ask for the weather in London. A successful answer with a real temperature confirms the key is active.

Configuration

What you provide before the sandbox starts.

OpenWeatherMap API KeyRequiredSecret

Get a free key at https://openweathermap.org/api. New keys can take up to a few hours to activate.

Example prompts

Paste any of these into Agent Studio once the server is connected.

What is the weather in Mumbai right now, and will it rain in the next 48 hours?

Compare the 5-day forecast for Berlin, Lisbon and Athens and tell me where to go hiking.

I am flying to Tokyo on Friday. What should I pack based on the forecast?

Which of my three office cities is coldest this week?

Limits and things to watch

Known constraints, stated plainly.

  • The free tier provides 5-day/3-hour forecasts. Longer horizons and historical data require a paid OpenWeatherMap plan.
  • New API keys need activation time — up to a few hours before the first successful call.
  • Ambiguous city names resolve to the largest match; pass coordinates or a country code when precision matters.
  • Rate limits are per key, so a shared key across several agents can hit 429 responses.

Test OpenWeather against a real model

Deploy the server hosted, then watch which tools a model actually reaches for — with full JSON input and output on every call. Switch models mid-conversation to compare how each one uses the same server.

Frequently asked questions

About the OpenWeather MCP server.

Is the OpenWeather API free?

Yes for this use. The free tier covers current conditions and 5-day forecasts at 60 calls per minute, which comfortably covers agent usage. Historical data, minute-level forecasts and bulk endpoints are paid.

My key returns 401 — what is wrong?

Almost always activation delay. A newly created OpenWeatherMap key is inactive for up to a few hours after signup. Regenerating it restarts that clock, so wait rather than creating another.

Why does an AI model need a weather server at all?

Because weather is live data and a language model only knows its training set. Without a tool it will either refuse or invent a plausible-sounding temperature. This is the canonical demonstration of what MCP fixes.

Can it give me the weather for a specific postcode?

Yes — the underlying API accepts city names, coordinate pairs and postcodes with a country hint. Coordinates are the most reliable for anywhere with a common place name.

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