Scientific Officer - High-impact weather forecast products (Space for Early Warning in Africa, SEWA)

Your role

ECMWF is seeking to fill an exciting new position as Scientific Officer – High-impact weather forecast products (A2) . In this position, you will contribute to the Space for Early Warnings in Africa (SEWA) initiative, a new programme of the European Union aiming to strengthen Early Warning Systems of hazardous weather and climate-related events over Africa. You will act as a contact point in ECMWF for the enhancement, evaluation and dissemination of high-impact weather forecast products and workflows critical to Early Warning systems, across time scales.

You will ensure the integration of outcomes and knowledge gained through grants focused on Regional Pilots on Impact-based Forecasts, with a focus on Africa. Under the coordination by ECMWF, these are implemented by the partnership with peers from the European Meteorological Infrastructure, African Regional Climate Centres (RCCs) and linked partners such as the Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres.

You will act as a Technical Officer for four grants, focusing on four regions of sub-Saharan Africa. Following a preparation phase in 2025, the grants are planned to start early 2026 and aim to demonstrate impact-based forecasts pilot services and tools for a variety of hazards. You will provide support and expert guidance to SEWA’s coordination team at ECMWF, including the Partnership Management and Training Specialist responsible for SEWA. You will provide expert guidance on the use, interpretation and evaluation of ECMWF NWP data and products, data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) and Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) and nowcasting data (EUMETSAT African Meteorological Satellite Application Facility, AMSAF).

As Technical Officer, you will also be responsible for the management design and content-related aspects of the grants and work closely with the Grants Officer who will coordinate the administrative aspects.

You will contribute to training activities to be implemented through train-the-trainer activities, co-designed with the African RCCs and in close collaboration with partner organisations, EUMETSAT and the African Union Commission.

Coordination with priorities as defined within the WMO contribution to the United Nations Early Warning for All (EW4All) initiative will be important across all activities. You will join an existing team in the Forecast and Services Department of ECMWF, working on the design and enhancement of ECMWF’s operational forecast products across time scales, and collaborate with scientific and technical staff across ECMWF.

Your responsibilities

• Contribute to the enhancement, evaluation and dissemination of ECMWF products for high-impact weather forecast and workflows critical to impact-based forecasts and Early Warning systems across time scales (medium-range, sub-seasonal, seasonal).
• Act as the Technical Officer of 4 regional pilots implemented through grants by ECMWF in SEWA, aiming at developing impact-based forecast demonstration services and tools at regional level in Africa.
• Support the initiative’s coordinator and senior management at ECMWF on coordination, and provide guidance to colleagues involved in the SEWA initiative on the development of high-impact weather forecasts products and tools.
• Lead the integration of the outcomes of the grants into ECMWF tools and workflows.
• Design innovative methods to assess the quality of impact-based forecast products, and contribute to implementation of these methods on products developed in SEWA. Collect and provide feedback for service and data improvements, within ECMWF and the European Meteorological Infrastructure and beyond.
• Coordinate with the EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) the use of CEMS data and products relevant to the SEWA initiative.
• Closely engage with EUMETSAT on technical aspects related to the use of AMSAF products.
• Support ECMWF’s training activities on the use and interpretation of high-impact weather forecast products and impact-based forecast products, especially in the context of Early Warning.

What we’re looking for

• Evidence of good organisational skills, and of ability to deliver on time and to specification.
• Attention to detail, as well as good understanding of wider contexts.
• Good communication skills, verbal and written.
• Ability to work as part of a team, as well as take individual responsibility for delivery of tasks.
• Ability to coordinate interactions within and across projects.

Education

• An advanced university degree (EQF Level 7 or above) or equivalent experience and in-career training that is relevant to the tasks.

Experience, Knowledge and Skills

• Understanding of and experience with ensemble weather, environmental and climate forecasts, appropriate verification techniques and medium-/longer-range forecasts.
• Knowledge of and experience in coding, sharing code developments, handling different data formats (grib, netcdf) and large volumes of data; experience in coding with Python is an advantage, experience with other programming languages is also welcome.
• Hands-on experience in the development and implementation of impact-based forecasts.
• Experience in data value chains (from observations, through forecasts of meteorology and impacts, warnings, to user decisions) related to early warning systems of weather- and climate-related events is an asset. A practical experience of using weather/climate-related data in an operational and/or decision-making context is an asset.
• Good knowledge of European landscape of entities active in weather and climate-related early warnings.
• Knowledge of weather and climate of (sub-Saharan) Africa is an asset.
• Knowledge of other international initiatives such as WMO EW4All and SOFF is an asset.
• Experience with running research or implementation projects is an advantage.
• Candidates must be able to work effectively in English, fluency in French or German would be a bonus.

We encourage you to apply even if you don’t feel you precisely meet all these criteria.

Other information

Grade remuneration: The successful candidates will be recruited at Grade A2 , according to the scales of the Co-ordinated Organisations and the annual basic salary will be GBP 73,094.76 (Reading/UK) or EUR89,168.64 (Bonn/Germany) NET annual basic salary (ECMWF salaries are exempt from national income tax) . In addition to basic salary, ECMWF also offers an attractive benefits package. This position is assigned to the employment category STF-PL as defined in the ECMWF Staff Regulations.

Starting date: As soon as possible.

Location: The position can be based either in Bonn, Germany or in Reading, UK.

Remote work: As a multi-site organisation, ECMWF has adopted a hybrid organisation model which allows flexibility to staff to mix office working and teleworking. We allow for remote work 10 days/month away from the office, including up to 80 days/year away from the duty station country (within the area of our member states and co-operating states).

Interviews by videoconference (MS Teams) are expected to take place around 2 weeks after the closing date. If you require any special accommodations in order to participate fully in our recruitment process, please let us know.

To contact the ECMWF Recruitment Team, please email

Who can apply

Applicants are invited to complete the online application form by clicking on the apply button below.

At ECMWF, we consider an inclusive environment as key for our success. We are dedicated to ensuring a workplace that embraces diversity and provides equal opportunities for all, without distinction as to race, gender, age, marital status, social status, disability, sexual orientation, religion, personality, ethnicity and culture. We value the benefits derived from a diverse workforce and are committed to having staff that reflect the diversity of the countries that are part of our community, in an environment that nurtures equality and inclusion.

Applications are invited from nationals from ECMWF Member States and Co-operating States, as well as from all EU Member States.

ECMWF Member and Co-operating States are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.

In these exceptional times, we also welcome applications from Ukrainian nationals for this vacancy.

Applications from nationals from other countries may be considered in exceptional cases.

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