Label : GRIB

Source : The Parliament Mag by Umberto Modigliani, deputy director of forecasts of ECMWF, responsible, with the department director, continuous production of forecasts and user relations.

Beginning of October, the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) will take a big step forward by making hundreds of its forecast maps freely available to all.
These changes are part of a large European initiative to make public sector data free and open, to encourage innovation and support a thriving data-driven digital economy.

Until now, full access to these forecast charts was restricted to national meteorological and hydrological services of ECMWF Member States and Cooperating States, to members of the World Meteorological Organization and to business customers. Access was subject to a series of custom licenses and high fees.

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Created in 1975 at the initiative of members of the European Union, the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecast is an independent intergovernmental organization whose headquarters, to date, is located in Reading, England. ECMWF is funded by 22 member states and 12 associated states. It employs nearly 350 people, and its supercomputer equipment is one of the largest in Europe. For about fifteen years, ECMWF forecasts tend to be among the most accurate in the world, according to verification data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). ECMWF is currently headed by French meteorologist Florence Rabier, who worked at the local Meteorological Office of Météo-France.

But, since the advent of Brexit, the situation has changed. UK no longer part of the EU, ECMWF must move to a European country, and this could generate, for weather data users, rather consequences… positives ! Read more …

By a notification corrected the 23 December 2014 (¹), the NWS (National Weather Service) NOAA has announced a major update of its weather predictions GFS model to be effective in mid-January 2015. Actually, This model is partially available on an experimental basis since early December.

NOTE

The Global Forecast System (GFS) is a model of weather forecasts produced by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) dependent of the NWS. Dozens of variables (²) atmospheric and terrain are available through this data set, Since temperatures, winds and precipitation to moisture from the soil and the concentration of atmospheric ozone. The world is covered by the current GFS model with a horizontal resolution 27 km between grid points to 10 days. The horizontal resolution is 70 km for forecasts between one week and two weeks. The GFS model is a coupled model, composed of four distinct models (an atmospheric model, an ocean model, an Earth model, and a sea ice model), who compete together to give an accurate picture of weather conditions. Changes are regularly made to the GFS model to improve the performance and accuracy of forecasts. Gridded data are available for download via the NOMADS servers (National Operational Model Archive and Distribution System) and widely used by application developers in the world.

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