News

Predicting warm conveyor belt ascending air flows in extratropical cyclones and their impacts on the weather remains a key challenge for forecasting. A workshop at ECMWF from 10 to 12 March 2020 will bring together a wide range of international experts to discuss the way forward.

The winter 2019/20 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.

ECMWF has released global data on weather-induced, outdoor thermal stress and discomfort in human beings covering the period from 1979 to today. The data have been calculated using weather information from ECMWF’s ERA5 reanalysis.

ECMWF has signed a four-year contract worth over 80 million euros with Atos for the supply of its BullSequana XH2000 supercomputer. ECMWF’s Council of Member States gave the Centre the green light for the deal during its session in December 2019.

ECMWF started assimilating wind data from the European Space Agency's ground-breaking Aeolus satellite operationally on 9 January 2020 after tests showed that they significantly improve weather forecasts.

A group of ECMWF scientists have been awarded time on the world’s most powerful supercomputer to carry out ground-breaking global weather and climate simulations at 1 km resolution.

ECMWF news highlights in 2019 include an upgrade of ECMWF’s Integrated Forecasting System that greatly improved forecasts; tests showing the substantial impact of ground-breaking new wind data; a series of events to drive forward numerical weather prediction; and the appointment of a new Director of Copernicus Services.

Registration is open for the 2020 Annual Seminar and a workshop on the forecasting challenges associated with warm conveyor belts. Other events in 2020 include the Using ECMWF’s Forecasts meeting (UEF) and our biennial workshop on high-performance computing in meteorology.

The use of machine learning in numerical weather prediction is on the rise. In a lecture on 10 December 2019, ECMWF scientist Peter Düben set out the main use cases and charted the way ahead.

More than a hundred modellers and satellite data specialists in the field of hydrology came together at ECMWF from 25 to 28 November to debate new ideas and deepen collaborations.