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A global gridded precipitation is a high-relevance high-priority development for a number of applications at ECMWF, particularly in 2026-2027, there are 5-key motivations:
- ECMWF global leadership in precipitation forecasting has fallen to a 3rd place (QED, 29 Septemberr 2026)
- ECMWF has a recognised global leadership in Weather + Atmospheric/Surface reanalysis (Rabier et al. 2025)
- ECMWF global leadership in precipitation forecasting has stably fallen to a 3rd place (QED, 29 Septemberr 2026)
- ECMWF precipitation is only a forecast field (unlike T2m that has having a dedicated 2D-analysis) and with large documented errors (Lavers et al. 2021)
- ECWMF is investing in CONVX package, and full hydrological coupling (CaMa-Flood), yet without a reliable verifying analysis for precipitation
- ECMWF is largely investing in AI-driven forecasting (AIFS, aiLand, AIFL) missing a crucial precipitation high-quality field for training/forcing.
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