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“Behind good forecast practices are often hidden good theories; equally, good theories should provide a basis for good forecast practices.”
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Professor Tor Bergeron, personal communication to Anders Persson, 1974
The aim of this User Guide is to help meteorologists make the best use of the forecast products from ECMWF - to increase understanding of the ensemble forecast process, to develop new products, to reach new sectors of society, to satisfy new demands. The User Guide presents the Integrated Forecast System (IFS) and advises on how best to use the output, not least on how to build up trust in the forecast information. A good forecast that is not trusted is a worthless forecast. The emphasis is on the medium-range forecast products, as this is ECMWF's primary goal, and because medium-range NWP output generally differs significantly from dealing with short-range or seasonal NWP.
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Section 5 describes the way the members of the ensemble are generated. The use of ENS allows assessment of uncertainty in the model forecast by giving a range of results. Each ensemble member starts from slightly perturbed initial data and evolves a little differently from the other members of the ensemble to give a range of possible forecast results. The variation seen within the ensemble forecasts gives an indication of predictability of the atmosphere..
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Section6: Using HRES and ENS forecasts
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Section11 highlights the continuing importance of the forecaster in providing a consistent and useful product to the customer..
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Section12: Appendices
Section12 contains additional detail on statistical concepts for verifying model forecasts, the current structure of IFS, a list of acronyms, and some references.
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