Improving weather forecasts through an operational network of Meteomatics Meteodrones

Weather significantly impacts a wide range of industries and influences many aspects of our daily lives. However, weather models often lack sufficient and reliable observations in the atmospheric boundary layer, which limits their accuracy, particularly in forecasting local weather phenomena over complex terrain. To fill this observational gap, Meteomatics has developed the Meteodrone-Meteobase-system.

Meteodrones are hexacopters equipped with meteorological sensors that collect high-resolution vertical profiles of temperature, humidity, wind speed and wind direction up to 6000 meters AMSL. The Meteobase acts as a base station, enabling the automatic launch and landing of the Meteodrones. Since 2020, Meteomatics has been operating a growing network of 3-10 Meteobase stations across Switzerland that is remotely controlled by a pilot. The data collected by the Meteodrones is automatically integrated into our high-resolution weather model EURO1k (1 km² resolution), to close the observational gap and improve weather forecasts. Building on the success and experience gained from the Swiss network, Meteomatics will install and deploy a network of 30 Meteobase stations across Norway between 2024 and 2027.

Here we assess the quality of the Meteodrone measurements against the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) observation requirements for high-resolution numerical weather prediction. Furthermore, we evaluate the impact of the Meteodrone data on forecasting local weather phenomena, such as stratus clouds, by comparing observations to model simulations with and without assimilated drone data. These findings showcase the operational capabilities of automatic Meteodrones for meteorological profiling and its contribution to improving numerical weather forecasts.