European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is an independent intergovernmental organization supported by most of the nations of Europe and is based at Shinfield Park, Reading, United Kingdom. It operates one of the largest supercomputer complexes in Europe and the world's largest archive of numerical weather prediction data.

ECMWF was established in 1975, in recognition of the need to pool the scientific and technical resources of Europe's meteorological services and institutions for the production of weather forecasts for medium-range timescales (up to approximately two weeks) and of the economic and social benefits expected from it.

It comprises 22 European countries:

•     the eighteen founding states of 1975: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom.
•     four states that joined since 2010: Iceland (April 2011), Slovenia (December 2012), Serbia (January 2015) and Croatia (January 2016).

It also has co-operation agreements with other states: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Morocco, Romania and Slovakia.

The Centre employs about 350 staff, mostly appointed from across the member states and co-operating states.[1]