The NWP SAF aims to improve and support the interface between satellite data/products and European activities in NWP.
The NWP SAF is one of several EUMETSAT SAFs (Satellite Application Facilities). Utilising specialist expertise from the Member States, SAFs are dedicated centres of excellence for processing satellite data and form an integral part of the distributed EUMETSAT Application Ground Segment. Further information about SAFs is available on the EUMETSAT web site.
The SAF for NWP interacts, where appropriate, with related work in other SAFs and in other EUMETSAT activities in order to enhance collaboration and to minimise duplication of effort.
Recent News and Updates
- RadSim v3.2 released - July 27, 2023
RadSim v3.2 has been released. This has been updated to work with RTTOV v13.2 and enables new RTTOV features including the MFASIS-NN (neural network based fast visible/near-IR cloud solver), the new polarisation treatment in RTTOV-SCATT, and the new SURFEM-Ocean microwave sea surface emissivity model. A full list of updates is available here. - NWP SAF SSMIS PP package retirement - June 15, 2023
Dear NWP SAF user, The SSMIS Pre-processing Package (SSMIS PP) currently supplied and maintained by the NWP SAF processes data from the SSMIS instruments on board the US Defence Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). There are two aspects to the processing in SSMIS PP: Handling the “LAS”, “UAS”, “IMG” and “ENV” BUFR files and detecting instrument anomalies, for DMSP F16 only. This aspect is now obsolete as the Unified Pre-processor (UPP – maintained by the US Naval Research Laboratory) routinely performs this step for all functioning SSMIS instruments. Spatial averaging capability, applicable to UPP BUFR files, in order to reduce instrument […] - NRT availability monitoring update - May 25, 2023
The near-real-time data availability monitoring has been updated to provide coverage and timeliness plots based on DWD reception for the geostationary radiances and AMVs from Himawari-9, GOES-18, MTEOSAT-10 as well as microwave radiances from MWTS-3 and MWHS-2 on the early morning orbit satellite FY-3E. Please visit the NRT availability monitoring web pages to access the plots https://nwp-saf.eumetsat.int/site/monitoring/nrt-availability/. - 10th Analysis Report of the NWP SAF AMV Monitoring - May 24, 2023
The 10th Analysis Report of the NWP SAF AMV monitoring has been released and is available from the Analysis Reports section of the AMV monitoring webpages (https://nwp-saf.eumetsat.int/site/monitoring/winds-quality-evaluation/amv/amv-analysis-reports/). The analysis reports identify features from the monitoring statistics and document how these evolve over time. Where possible attempts are made to diagnose the cause of the difference between the AMVs and the model. This edition includes the use of the NWC SAF software package to look at two AMV case studies in the Tropical East African region, namely mesoscale convective systems and winds in the boundary layer. - NWP SAF Satellite Data Assimilation Training Course - May 10, 2023
The next NWP SAF satellite data assimilation training course will take place at ECMWF, Reading, on 15-19 May 2023. The course provides a complete overview of the usage of meteorological satellite observations in operational numerical weather prediction (NWP). It includes a series of lectures and practical sessions covering a range of topics – from fundamental theoretical concepts through to detailed practical implementations in modern state-of-the-art data assimilation systems. Registration for this course is closed but lecture notes and course materials are available online. More information on https://events.ecmwf.int/event/334/