AI ECMWF - AIFS, Artificial Intelligence Forecasting System
| Provider: | European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts |
| Model scope: | Global |
| Update frequency: | every 6 hours |
| Resolution: | 0.25°, 15.0nm, 27.8km |
| Model duration: | 39 forecasts starting at 0 hr, ending at 15 days |
| Parameters: | pressure, wind, temperature |
| GRIB model date: | Tue Feb 10 18:00:00 2026 UTC |
| Download date: | Tue Feb 10 23:45:58 2026 UTC |
| Download delay: | 5hr 45min |
Note: the Download delay is the amount of time required for the GRIB model to compute its forecast and then for the LuckGrib cluster to download the data and make it available. The LuckGrib delay is generally less than 10 minutes, the remainder of the delay is the model compute time.
Introduction
The ECMWF, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, is running an operational weather forecast model using machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, called AIFS.
If you are interested in learning a little more about how machine learning and its application to numerical weather prediction, please read about it here.
The AIFS model is being used to create forecast data, four times a day, with forecasts every 6 hours out to 15 days.
AIFS
AIFS was first announced in October 2023. In that initial announcement, AIFS was producing data at a 1 degree resolution. AIFS was updated in January 2024. The upgrade announcement is worth reading. Two notable points, the first being that the data resolution is now 0.25 degrees. The second, among many, interesting points is that they mention that this second version of AIFS has moved on from the original Google GraphCast ML techniques toward variants which they find are working better for weather prediction. There are several charts showing comparisons of the skill level between AIFS, its earlier version, IFS, and GraphCast where the new AIFS is more skillful than the others. ML appears to be a very promising approach for NWP.
For additional articles and detail on the AIFS model, please read the articles published on the ECMWF AIFS blog.
The AIFS team have also created a paper linked off of this page.
It appears that AIFS may become preferred over the deterministic ECMWF IFS model for forecasts which extend further into the future. AIFS appears to be more skillful than IFS at the 15 day mark, and earlier.
Note that there are fewer parameters availble in the AIFS than in the deterministic ECMWF model. In particular, wind gust is currently not available, along with the heights of the various pressure levels (500mb and 250mb.)
Comparison of IFS and AIFS
This page comparing AIFS to IFS may be interesting to some. Blue is better, red is worse. Look at the 10ff line, which corresponds to 10m wind. Also the msl line is interesting, sea level pressure. It looks like AIFS is pretty much better than IFS, across the board, for the two main parameters of interest to sailors.
License terms
This data is licensed in the same manner as with the ECMWF data. Please read that page for details.