The first draft of the ECMWF Convention was considered on 9 and 10 December 1971, with 32 senior representatives from 14 of the 18 founding States attending. The Convention was signed in 1973 and came into force on 1 November 1975. Its creation set up the centre as an independent intergovernmental organisation.
The Convention set up the Centre as an independent international organisation.
A Danish national, Professor Askel Wiin-Nielsen was ECMWF’s first Director from 1 January 1974 to 31 December 1979. He put ECMWF on track to become a world leader in global numerical weather prediction.
Germany
Co-operation agreement
Having been ratified by 13 Member States, the ECMWF Convention entered into force on 1 November 1975 and the Centre became an intergovernmental organisation in its own right.
Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Germany, France, Ireland, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom deposited their instruments of ratification.
The first session of the Council was held from 4 to 6 November 1975.
Member State
ECMWF supercomputer history. In order to run weather forecast models within a schedule that has reasonably short timeslots, powerful supercomputer systems are required. The first version of the ECMWF weather forecasting model was developed on a Control Data Corporation 6600 computer from 1976 to 1978.
