#UEF2020
A forum to discuss the use and performance of ECMWF's forecasts and related products
“Using ECMWF’s Forecasts” provides a forum for exchanging ideas and experiences on the use of ECMWF data and products. It is open to all ECMWF forecast users around the world and provides an opportunity to give feedback to ECMWF on forecast performance and on the range of available products, and to learn about ECMWF’s recent developments of its forecasting system.
2020 theme: "Keeping users at the heart of operations”
ECMWF was created over four decades ago with the goal of improving global numerical weather predictions to support its Member and Co-operating States, as well as the broader meteorological communities. ECMWF now provides its users around the world with predictions for days, weeks and seasons ahead at a level of accuracy and reliability second to none. The Centre owes this leading position to a combination of collaborative principles, top-level professionals, powerful HPC capacities and a strong user focus.
During this year’s meeting we explored how end-user needs feed into the operational activities of weather and environmental information providers to deliver added value outputs. We looked at ECMWF processes and how they transform research, technical development and data inputs into desired products or services for its data users in Member and Co-operating states and around the world.
Keeping users at the heart of operations relies on maintaining a 2-way communication between users and data providers. Effective channels to collect feedback and advice are therefore essential to establish such a dialogue. Moreover, the 2-way communication ensures that innovation is relevant and its benefits are passed to users in order to support their ability to provide more accurate environment, weather, water and climate actionable information. Examples of this are research to operations processes that transition from a planning, development and testing phase to implementation and evaluation. The corresponding operations to research process provides feedback on performance and evolving user needs, helping to focus research efforts.
The UEF offered an opportunity for participants to showcase their activities and responses to users’ needs. The meeting also provided a framework where participants were able to share their experiences with ECMWF data and provide feedback on ECMWF products.