ECMWF news highlights in the first seven months of 2025 include updates on our Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) and our Artificial Intelligence Forecasting System (AIFS), on initiatives in weather science, and on the EU-funded services implemented by ECMWF.
Forecasting and general developments
In the next upgrade of the IFS, humidity in the stratosphere will be analysed based on observations to improve the starting conditions of forecasts. The upgrade from IFS Cycle 49r1 to 50r1, which includes many other improvements, is scheduled for the autumn.
The AIFS Single was made operational in February, and the ensemble version of the AIFS (AIFS ENS) was made operational in July. More reports on the AIFS can be found on the AIFS Blog pages.
ECMWF is bringing forward the full transition to open data by a year, to 1 October 2025, marking a significant milestone in its commitment to making weather data more accessible and impactful.
Credit: NicoElNino / iStock / Getty Images Plus
ECMWF is contributing to the EU-funded Africa–EU Space Partnership Programme that started in January 2025 by taking a leading role in the four-year Space for Early Warning in Africa (SEWA) component.
ECMWF Director-General Florence Rabier signed the Space for Early Warning in Africa (SEWA) agreement during the European Space Conference in Brussels in January 2025.
ECMWF’s Council announced the appointment of Florian Pappenberger, the current Director of Forecasts and Services and Deputy Director-General, as the Centre’s next Director-General from 1 January 2026. He will take over the post from Florence Rabier.
Driving forward weather science
A week of events in Bonn, Germany, from 7 to 11 April 2025 to mark ECMWF’s 50th anniversary provided tantalising insights into the present and future of weather forecasting.
Launched in May 2024, the EarthCARE satellite’s unique combination of instruments – a radar, a lidar, an imager and a broadband radiometer – will improve the modelling of clouds, aerosols and precipitation in a number of different ways.
Credit: ESA/ATG medialab
Impact experiments which ECMWF has carried out for the UN’s Systematic Observations Financing Facility (SOFF) have shown that weather forecasts would benefit significantly from more in-situ observations in several countries.
ECMWF Director-General Florence Rabier and the Anemoi Framework on machine learning, in which ECMWF plays a leading role, will each receive a prestigious award from the European Meteorological Society (EMS).
ECMWF scientists Tim Hewson and Fatima Pillosu have received the British Royal Meteorological Society’s 2024 Hugh Robert Mill Award for Precipitation Research for their achievements in improving the accuracy of rainfall forecasts, with a focus on extreme events.
EU-funded services
The 2024 European State of the Climate (ESOTC) report was published by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by ECMWF, and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
ECMWF showcased its two Copernicus services, C3S and the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), at the Ballon Generali de Paris on 29 April. This marked the start of a five-year scientific partnership with insurance company Generali to advance awareness and research on global warming and air quality monitoring.
ECMWF is taking a prominent role in the Horizon Europe research project SEED-FD (Strengthening Extreme Events Detection for Floods and Droughts) to improve the global prediction of extreme floods and droughts.
Our scientists have developed a new tool for improved wildfire prediction using machine learning, as set out in a paper published on 1 April 2025 in Nature Communications.
Francesca Di Giuseppe, Joe McNorton, Anna Lombardi and Fredrik Wetterhall (clockwise from top left) are the authors of the paper published in Nature Communications.
Other news articles
Additional reports can be found on the news page of the ECMWF website. For more developments on the Copernicus services run by ECMWF, consult the news pages of C3S and CAMS, while Destination Earth (DestinE) articles can be found in the news section of ECMWF’s DestinE website.