Integrated Forecast System

IFS Ensemble and Deterministic outputs

The Integrated Forecast System (IFS) is an operational global meteorological forecasting model. IFS is developed and maintained by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) based in Reading, England. Because of its source, it is often known as the "ECMWF" or the "European model" in North America, to distinguish it from the American Global Forecast System (GFS).

The IFS is a global model that runs every twelve hours. Its output runs out to ten days in one-day intervals. The operational model runs both in a deterministic forecast mode and as a 51-member ensemble. The deterministic mode has twice the horizontal resolution of the ensemble, and one and a half times the vertical resolution (60 layers in the deterministic compared to 40 in the ensemble); both modes' vertical layers follow terrain at low levels. The IFS, like the GFS, uses spectral representation rather than a grid-based system.

Information from the IFS is proprietary and copyrighted, though the ECMWF has made a limited amount of the model's most important calculations available to the public; this public data is, by declaration of the ECMWF, in the public domain. In the United States, the IFS is generally used as a comparison against the American GFS model in the forecast period between four and ten days.

External links

• www.ecmwf.int/research