Using ECMWF's Forecasts (UEF2018)

ECMWF | Reading | 5-8 June 2018

#UEF2018

“Using ECMWF’s Forecasts” is open to all ECMWF forecast users. This year's theme will provide an opportunity for participants to showcase innovative ideas, for example weather applications, forecast products or diagnostics tools. It will also provide a framework where participants can share their experiences with ECMWF data and provide feedback on ECMWF products.

2018 theme: “ECMWF model output applications: the only limit is your imagination"

Weather is part of everybody’s life: we are curious about it, we want to plan our day or we use services (like energy, utilities) that are affected by it. Aviation, agriculture, energy, utilities, retail are some examples of sectors connected directly or indirectly to weather.

Weather data are transformed into relevant information to be used in decision making processes. Examples of this are indices alerting of favourable conditions for flu outbreaks and therefore helping people to make informed decisions regarding their health and well-being. Probabilities of winds being above or below specified thresholds provide means to effectively manage wind farms, and probabilities of occurrence of specified weather scenarios help farmers to minimise damages due to mildew on vineyards. These are just a few of the variety of applications that use weather information.

Let’s take a step further and imagine experiencing a severe weather event in virtual reality where you live. Could this experience help to make better decisions? Let us imagine using infographics to communicate forecast confidence. Would that make possible decision-making at a glance? This is what could be done with today’s ECMWF model outputs in addition to those applications in the water, energy, agriculture and health sectors that have already made use of ECMWF data.