ECMWF Director of Research Erland Källén and Professor Ian Roulstone of the University of Surrey joined forces on Monday 7 September to describe and explain to British Science Festival delegates how weather forecasters identify order within chaos.
They presented the latest developments in numerical weather prediction (NWP), including advances and successes that have marked the last few decades.
They also talked about the use of observations to define the initial state, and they placed NWP in the context of the widely debated big data phenomenon.
"The weather prediction talk stimulated a lot of discussion. In particular, the fact that winter predictions are better than summer predictions generated curiosity," Professor Källén said.
The event took place as part of the four-day British Science Festival, hosted by the University of Bradford and supported by Siemens, with events on campus and across the city of Bradford.