 It contains information regarding variability of weather parameters, in location and time and can highlight an abnormality of a weather situation without having to define specific space- and time-dependent thresholds.ECMWF, through its partnerships with EUMETSAT, ESA, the EU and the European Science community has established a leading position for Europe in the exploitation of satellite data for operational numerical weather prediction, and for operational seasonal forecasting with coupled atmosphere-ocean-land models.The increasing amount of satellite data and the development of more sophisticated ways of extraction information from that data have made a major contribution to improving the accuracy and utility of NWP forecasts.