Weather Data Calibration

What Is Weather Data Calibration?

Calibration is a post-processing method that involves adjusting data from weather models to match actual conditions on the ground.

How Does Weather Data Calibration Work?

When you choose your desired location and opt for calibration, we assimilate all available adjacent station measurements in order to adjust the model data and bring your results closer to reality.

Calibrated Parameters

This calibration method exclusively pertains to parameters directly measured by weather stations, such as:

1. Temperature
2. Relative humidity
3. Wind speed
4. Air pressure

What’s the Impact of Weather Data Calibration?

For historical periods, station observations enhance the historical dataset.

As for forecasts, calibration primarily impacts the initial six hours of the weather forecast. During this period, the effect of the calibration progressively lessens, and after six hours, the calibrated forecast seamlessly transitions into being purely based on the original model forecast. This approach ensures a blend of accurate, localized data in the short term, with the broader model data prevailing in the longer-term forecast.

The Fewer Updates the Model Receives, the Greater the Impact of Calibration

For instance, ECMWF provides updates four times per day. However, by calibrating, you can enhance the frequency of updates by incorporating new station data as it becomes available, typically every 10-20 minutes. This allows for more frequent adjustments to your forecast, offering a way to obtain a more refined and up-to-date prediction compared to the standard four updates provided by ECMWF.

By contrast, the impact will not be as significant with weather models updated more frequently, such as the Meteomatics EURO1k model, which updates every hour.

Not all parameters can undergo calibration; therefore, the output data from the Meteomatics Weather API isn't automatically calibrated, as it might not be relevant for every use case.

Whether you're using the Weather API or MetX, you must initiate the calibration post-processing manually.

Here's how to do it.

Calibrate Weather Data Using MetX

In the layer stack, parameters that can be calibrated will display a "Calibrated" checkbox. Simply select it to initiate the calibration process for your data.