News

World Meteorological Day graphic

World Meteorological Day highlights weather and climate risks

World Meteorological Day 2018 is dedicated to the risks related to weather and water events and climate change: we need to be weather-ready, climate-smart, and water-wise, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) says.
Snow-covered mountains in the Arctic

ECMWF uses data from extra radiosondes launched in the Arctic

Weather data collected by radiosondes launched in the Arctic in February and March 2018 as part of the Year of Polar Prediction are feeding into ECMWF forecasts. The availability of such observations is significant as this region is normally only sparsely observed.
HPC workshop graphic

Sign up for supercomputing meeting at ECMWF in September

Registration is now open for the biennial workshop on high-performance computing in meteorology to take place at ECMWF from 24 to 28 September 2018. The meeting will cover a wide range of issues with a particular focus on scalability and I/O.
International Women's Day 2018 montage

Celebrating women in science

Women are still sorely underrepresented in science globally. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, we look at the achievements of some of the women driving forward weather science at ECMWF.
Lightning strike

How to predict lightning

ECMWF will soon provide global forecasts of one of the most spectacular phenomena in the atmosphere: lightning. Predictions cannot be made for individual flashes, but forecasts for average lightning activity can have useful skill up to several days ahead.
NASA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-S (GOES-S)

NOAA’s GOES-S launching 1 March to help improve weather forecasts

Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-S (GOES-S) will be the second in a series of new, advanced geostationary satellites designed to give higher resolution data, delivered more rapidly to forecasting centres such as ECMWF.
ECMWF UEF2018 registration graphic

Call for registration and abstracts: UEF user meeting in June 2018

ECMWF invites users of its forecasts and products to submit abstracts for the ‘Using ECMWF’s Forecasts’ meeting from 5 to 8 June 2018. The programme will include talks and keynote addresses to stimulate discussion and interactive sessions to encourage networking.
Flooding in Texas in the wake of Hurricane Harvey

ECMWF joins meeting on challenges in hydrological ensemble forecasting

The 2018 HEPEX workshop in Melbourne, Australia, was themed ‘breaking the barriers’ to highlight the challenges facing researchers and practitioners and how they can be overcome.
Phil Browne

Paving the way for ocean–atmosphere coupled data assimilation

Phil Browne trained as an applied mathematician before joining ECMWF to help develop a key aspect of operational numerical weather prediction (NWP): coupled ocean–atmosphere data assimilation. He sets out the challenges involved and how he is addressing them.
Poster session at the CHE General Assembly Feb 2018

Experts discuss way forward for ambitious CO2 monitoring project

More than 50 experts from Europe and beyond met at ECMWF from 5 to 7 February 2018 to chart the way forward for an ambitious project working towards an operational capacity to monitor fossil fuel CO2 emissions.
Summer of Weather Code graphic

ECMWF launches Summer of Weather Code programme

ECMWF is launching a programme open to anybody keen to develop innovative weather data technologies. Applications to work on any one of 13 challenges can be submitted until 30 March.
EC-Earth meeting Jan 2018 plenary session

EC-Earth gets ready for climate model intercomparison project

EC-Earth, a European consortium which aims to provide reliable climate information, is in the final stages of preparing for a climate model intercomparison project expected to feed into the next IPCC report, a meeting hosted by ECMWF has heard.

Andy Brown

Experts review ocean surface observations for NWP

More than 50 ocean and data assimilation experts came together at ECMWF from 22 to 25 January to discuss the way forward for the use of observations of sea-surface temperature (SST) and sea ice in numerical weather prediction (NWP) and climate applications.
Diagram illustrating the principle of 4D-Var

4D-Var anniversary symposium held at ECMWF

Developing a 4D variational data assimilation system was one of ECMWF’s biggest-ever projects. A symposium to mark the 20th anniversary of the operational implementation of 4D-Var took place at the Centre on 26 January.
ECMWF Newsletter 154 cover

Winter 2017/18 Newsletter published

The winter 2017/18 issue of the ECMWF Newsletter is now available. As well as news about ECMWF staff and events, it features articles about new developments and the use that can be made of ECMWF products.
Typhoon Neoguri (2014) from International Space Station

Ocean coupling in tropical cyclone forecasts

Tropical cyclones are one of the deadliest weather phenomena. One of the avenues being pursued at ECMWF to improve forecasts of tropical cyclones is to better take into account interactions between the ocean and the atmosphere during the forecast period.

Temperature differences between 2017 and 1981 to 2010

2017 extends exceptionally warm period, first complete datasets show

The first complete temperature datasets for 2017 show that last year was the third in a row of exceptionally warm years, the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) implemented by the European Weather Centre (ECMWF) can announce.
ECMWF at AMS2018 news image

ECMWF at the 2018 AMS Annual Meeting

ECMWF will be at the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas, from 7 to 11 January. Find out when our staff are presenting and when they will be available at our booth.
News highlights 2017

News highlights of 2017

The year started with a bang when ECMWF Copernicus reanalysis data showed that 2016 had been the warmest year on record. Other milestones included the decision to build a new data centre in Bologna, a major model upgrade and the implementation of a new seasonal forecasting system.