ICON-EU upgrade: pressure levels, soil profiles and a growing forecast archive

ICON-EU on GribStream is expanding from 69 single-level fields to 88 parameter families, covering 243 combinations of parameter, level and statistic. The upgrade adds atmospheric profiles on 20 pressure levels, soil temperature and moisture at multiple depths, and DWD’s enlarged European domain. Forecast history now starts on 6 October 2026 at 06 UTC, replacing the previous five-day window.

What changes

Profiles from the surface to 50 hPa

The pressure-level fields cover 20 levels from 1,000 to 50 hPa, including 925, 850, 700, 500 and 250 hPa. Temperature (T), horizontal wind components (U, V), relative humidity (RELHUM), cloud cover (CLC), geopotential (FI) and pressure vertical velocity (OMEGA) are available at every published pressure level.

That adds a vertical view to the existing surface forecast. You can compare low-level winds with 10 m winds, examine temperature and humidity through the atmosphere, or follow the pressure patterns and vertical motion associated with an approaching weather system.

The land-surface inventory also grows substantially. T_SO provides soil temperature at nine depths from the surface to 14.58 m. W_SO and W_SO_ICE provide water and ice content in eight soil layers. Together with precipitation, snow and runoff, these fields support soil-water and freeze–thaw analysis for agriculture and hydrology.

A larger European domain at 6.5 km

DWD enlarged the ICON-EU domain on 6 October. It extends farther south and adds coverage to the west and north, bringing Iceland and Norway fully inside the domain. GribStream’s updated dataset uses 768,608 native cell centers across this expanded area.

The model’s horizontal spacing remains approximately 6.5 km. The change brings the native triangular grid and larger footprint to the API. This expands the area available for European energy portfolios, Atlantic weather systems and operations across the Mediterranean.

2 m temperature from the 21 October 2026, 12 UTC run at +3 hours. DWD / Source Cooperative, CC BY 4.0. Figure in °C.

Solar and wind fields through day five

The broader inventory brings the atmospheric and soil profiles alongside ICON-EU’s existing energy fields. Solar applications can combine direct and diffuse short-wave radiation (ASWDIR_S, ASWDIFD_S) with cloud cover, 2 m temperature and clear-sky net short-wave radiation (ASOB_S_CS). Wind applications can combine 10 m components and gusts (U_10M, V_10M, VMAX_10M) with the new pressure-level wind profiles.

There are eight runs per day:

• 00, 06, 12 and 18 UTC: forecasts through 120 hours. Most fields are hourly through +78 hours, then every three hours. The 10 m wind components, gusts, and direct and downward diffuse solar radiation remain hourly through +120 hours.
• 03, 09, 15 and 21 UTC: hourly forecasts through +51 hours where published. Mixed-layer depth (MH) ends at +30 hours.

History for forecast comparisons and backtesting

The archive starts with the 6 October 2026, 06 UTC run on the expanded grid. New runs extend that history as they arrive, so a forecast remains available after it passes the previous five-day limit. This allows comparisons between successive runs, forecast verification and backtests that use the forecast available at a particular initialization time.

The history is supplied by dynamical.org’s archive on Source Cooperative. Access to older runs depends on continued availability in that archive.

Using the upgraded dataset

The dataset remains iconeu. The ICON-EU model page lists all 88 parameter families and their available levels, with the exact selectors for time-series queries. DWD’s parameter names remain in use, including T_2M, TOT_PREC and the new profile fields. DWD has withdrawn the visibility field (VIS) from distribution.

Explore the ICON-EU inventory · API documentation

Weather data: Deutscher Wetterdienst, CC BY 4.0.