Met Office Blended Probabilistic Forecast: UK Gridded Weather Percentiles

Gridded percentile weather forecasts for the UK and parts of Western Europe at approximately 2km resolution. The data is produced by the Met Office's IMPROVER Blended Probabilistic Forecast system, which blends and calibrates operational NWP ensembles and nowcasts. It is one of eight such forecast products published by the Met Office on AWS.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the range of possible weather outcomes based on ensemble-derived percentiles.
• Developing applications for localized weather risk assessment using the 2km gridded data.
• Comparing forecast reliability and skill using the calibrated and verified IMPROVER pipeline outputs.
• Studying spatial precipitation patterns with cautionary interpretation of high and low percentiles as noted in the description.

Strengths

• High spatial resolution of approximately 2km for detailed regional analysis.
• Forecasts are calibrated and verified using the Met Office's IMPROVER pipeline for reliability.
• Data is derived from operational Numerical Weather Prediction ensembles, suggesting operational quality.

Limitations

• Precipitation percentiles are noted as potentially misleading for spatial interpretation and recommended for expert use only.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data structure, parameters, and temporal coverage require manual inspection after download.
• The description notes that details like the number of parameters and timesteps may change in the future, indicating potential format instability.

Provenance

Source

Met Office

Collection Method

Produced by the Met Office IMPROVER Blended Probabilistic Forecast system, blending operational NWP ensembles and nowcasts.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Information is stated as correct as of April 2026, but last data update is unknown.

Geography

United Kingdom and parts of Western Europe