Operation Related Meteorological Measurements and Forecasts for ESO Sites

Welcome to this site. It provides operation related informations regarding the meteorological conditions measured at ESO observatories and forecasted by the ECMWF global model (ASM Display user login required -see bottom note-, please copy the configurations to your own namespace before modification)

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PARANAL

Graphics Panel

ASM-2016

ARMAZONES

Graphics Panel

LA SILLA

Graphics Panel

CHAJNANTOR

Graphics Panel

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How to become ASM Display user: to be added to the ASM user list, you need first to have an account in the ESO User Portal, then email it with justification to the User Support Department.

Data characteristics: the local measurements are performed every minute. The meteorological forecasts are refreshed every 6 hours by ECMWF, about 7h after the model initialization time. The graphs show medium range operational forecasts, up to T+90H, with a step of 1 hour.

Terminology: <forecast> refers to the latest ECMWF operational product, <nowcast> is the output of the global model at the time of the initialization (forecast step 0, hence most accurate), <24hcast> refers to the ECMWF forecast produced 24 hours earlier, this is the product available in the control room when planning the observations of the night, <kalman forecast> is the result of filtering the output of the global model from systematic errors estimated on selected past data sets, this is only available for parameters which are monitored locally.

Credits: the forecasts are produced by ECMWF (European Center for Medium Range Forecast). Two type of grid are used: the first, with a step of 3 degrees, on [65W to 110W]x[10S to 43S], and the second use a step of .125 degree on [67W to 71.5W]x[22S to 26.5S] and on [67W to 71.5W]x[27S to 31.5S].

Note from ECMWF:
"ECMWF products are provided for the sole use of ESO and cannot be passed to a third party. Graphical displays of ECMWF data over the open internet is thus not permitted"