How to Query Live OpenWeatherMap Data in Claude Desktop

Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an emerging, open-source standard for connecting LLMs with external services and data sources. Through MCP Servers, AI clients can perform actions like opening Jira tickets, posting Slack messages, committing GitHub branches and more. With CData MCP Server, these capabilities expand exponentially.

CData MCP Server provides schema-aware context to AI tools — whether you're using it for AI-assisted code generation in IDEs like Cursor, or for querying live data through chat interfaces like Claude Desktop.

In this article, we guide the reader through installing CData API Driver for MCP Server, configuring the connection to OpenWeatherMap, and asking questions of the data in Claude Desktop.

Prerequisites

You need to download Claude Desktop (download) and create an account before continuing.

Overview

Here's a quick overview of the steps:

1. Download and install the CData API Driver for MCP Server
2. Configure the connection to OpenWeatherMap
3. Ask questions about the data in Claude Desktop

Step 1: Download and install CData MCP Server

1. To begin, navigate to https://www.cdata.com/solutions/codeassist/ and download the CData API Driver for MCP Server. 👁 Downloading the CData MCP Server installer
   
2. Find and double-click the installer to begin the installation. 👁 Running the installer for CData MCP Server (Google Sheets is shown.)
   
3. Follow the prompts to complete the installation. 👁 Completing the CData MCP Server installation (Google Sheets is shown).
   

When the installation is complete, you are ready to configure MCP Server by connecting to OpenWeatherMap.

Step 2: Configure the connection to OpenWeatherMap

1. After installation, the MCP Server configuration wizard should open automatically. 👁 The MCP Server configuration wizard.
   

   NOTE: If the wizard does not open automatically, search for "CData MCP Server" in the Windows search bar and double-click the application. 👁 Opening the MCP Server configuration wizard (Google Sheets is shown).
   

2. Click the dropdown menu in MCP Configuration > Configuration Name and select "
3. Name the configuration (e.g. "cdataapi") and click "OK."

   NOTE: This name is used as the name for the MCP server and as the prefix for all of the MCP Server's tools.

   👁 Naming the configuration.
   

4. Connecting to OpenWeatherMap

   Using API Key Authentication

   To obtain an API key, sign up for a free account at https://openweathermap.org/api and navigate to the API keys section of your dashboard. Copy your API key for use in the connection configuration.

   After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
   • APIKey: Set this to your OpenWeatherMap API key.

   Enter the appropriate connection properties in the configuration wizard.

   👁 Configuring the Server to connect with a specific Spreadsheet.
   
5. Click "Connect" to authenticate with OpenWeatherMap.
6. Finally, click "Save Configuration" to save the configuration. 👁 Saving the MCP Server configuration.
   

   NOTE: This saves the configuration details to a separate file and updates the Claude Desktop configuration file (claude_desktop_config.json) to start MCP Server when the Claude Desktop client starts.

With MCP Server configured, you are ready to start asking questions of your live data from Claude.

Step 3: Ask AI for answers from live OpenWeatherMap data

Now that we have installed MCP Server and configured a connection, we are ready to start with OpenWeatherMap data in Claude Desktop.

1. Open Claude Desktop. It may take a moment for MCP Server to start, but you will see the list of servers and tools available in the Claude interface (look for the settings icon below the prompt bar). 👁 The MCP servers menu showing available connections in Claude Desktop
   

   You can individually enable and disable specific tools by clicking on the server name. 👁 The expanded tool list for MCP Server in Claude Desktop
   

2. Now that you have connected, you can ask Claude questions about the OpenWeatherMap data. For example: "Can you give me a quantitative analysis about my closed-won opportunities by industry?"

   NOTE: Claude may need to explore the OpenWeatherMap data to make sense of it before it can begin answering questions of the data. The tabular model presented by CData alongside the database tools available simplify the data exploration and analysis for an LLM.

   👁 Claude Desktop displaying a quantitative analysis of live data
   

Build with MCP Server. Deploy with CData Drivers.

Download CData API Driver for MCP Server for free and give your AI tools schema-aware access to live OpenWeatherMap data during development. When you're ready to move to production, CData API Drivers deliver the same SQL-based access with enterprise-grade performance, security, and reliability.

Visit the CData Community to share insights, ask questions, and explore what's possible with MCP-powered AI workflows.