The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts - an historical background

• The early history of Numerical Weather Prediction
• The creation of ECMWF
• The ECMWF forecasting model since 1979 - an overview

The European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is the consequence of 100 years of development in dynamic and synoptic meteorology, and fifty years of development in numerical weather prediction (NWP). This time has seen periods of optimism vary with pessimism, during which a slow but steady improvement of the quality of the weather forecasts has been made