High-resolution weather modelling
The Met Office delivers a high-resolution weather model over the UK.
An enormous volume of data from our UK observations network is fed into the Met Office supercomputer on an hourly basis. This data not only enables us to maintain a historic record of weather and atmospheric conditions, but also provides the starting conditions for the weather models producing our forecasts.
The Met Office delivers high-resolution model output over the UK, enabling us to model weather at a scale as fine as 1.5km. We also deliver a range of other Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models and other modelling systems. Our Numerical Weather Prediction system is widely acknowledged as the most accurate, short-range, global model data produced by a National Meteorological Service.
Why is a supercomputer important?
The power of our supercomputer enables the Met Office to take in approximately 215 billion global weather observations every day, which are used as a starting point for running an atmospheric model containing more than a million lines of code.
How are the weather models used?
The high-resolution UK model provides data streams for our website and app, enabling the UK public to have immediate access to the very latest weather forecasts. This information is also used by our expert meteorologists who deliver even more detailed public forecasts such as our presented content, and also develop specific forecasts for organisations such as the government, the military and industry.
How can the data be used?
As well as going into weather models, the data streams are also used by a range of customers and partners as well as by Met Office teams. They may combine this data stream with other data to meet particular customer requirements. You can read more about some of the organisations using Met Office data and model output on our Powered by the Met Office webpage.
