European Centre For Medium-Range Weather Forecasts - Work and Projects

Work and Projects

ECMWF uses the computer modelling technique of numerical weather prediction (NWP) to forecast the weather from its present measured state. The calculations require a constant input of meteorological data, collected by satellites and earth observation systems such as automatic and manned stations, aircraft, ships and weather balloons.

The data are fed into ECMWF's databases and assimilated into its NWP models to produce:

• medium-range forecasts, predicting the weather up to 15 days ahead
• monthly forecasts, predicting the weather on a weekly basis 30 days ahead
• seasonal forecasts up to 12 months ahead.

Over the past three decades ECMWF's activities and wide-ranging programme of research and development have played a pioneering role in the remarkable advancement of weather forecasting and data assimilation systems. ECMWF has dramatically improved the accuracy and reliability of weather forecasting, working in collaboration with Member and Co-operating States, the European Union and partners such as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

ECMWF, through its partnerships with EUMETSAT, ESA, the EU and the European Science community has established a leading position for Europe in the exploitation of satellite data for operational numerical weather prediction, and in the exploitation of satellite data for operational seasonal forecasting with coupled atmosphere-ocean-land models. The increasing amount of satellite data and the development of more sophisticated ways of extraction information from that data have made a major contribution to improving the accuracy and utility of NWP forecasts. ECMWF continuously endeavours to improve the use of satellite observations for NWP.