New European weather centre gets the go ahead in Reading
The addition of the new ECMWF HQ will mean Reading will house one of the largest clusters of weather and climate research and operational forecasting facilities in the world
A new headquarters for the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) has been given the go ahead to be built at the University of Reading.
Construction of ECMWF’s modern, accessible, and highly sustainable headquarters is scheduled to start towards the end of this year and completion is expected in autumn 2026, after Wokingham Borough Council approved the development at its February 2024 Planning Committee.
The new headquarters will accommodate up to 300 scientists and staff to support world-leading work on all aspects of weather prediction systems, forecast production, and research into Climate Change. The state-of-the-art facility will support the use of the latest advances made in areas such as data assimilation, earth system modelling, predictability and reanalysis to improve forecasts.
With the University’s Department of Meteorology, and parts of the UK Met Office, NERC National Centre for Atmospheric Sciences and NERC National Centre for Earth Observation all currently located within the university, the addition of the new ECMWF HQ will mean Reading will house one of the largest clusters of weather and climate research and operational forecasting facilities in the world.