Note: FOREST software is still in rapid development phase so it is likely that the User Interface will change. If you wish to use FOREST on your own data, please follow the instructions in the official documentation.

Once FOREST is launched the menus will populate with the data that it is pointed at. In the versions launched from this website, the data is predominantly from Met Office sources and is intended to be a collaboration tool for Operational Meteorologists and Scientists.

Click on Settings - All the menus shrink or expand with buttons

Under Control:

Layout: You can click and choose how many images you want to see at once, e.g. one full screen, or side-by-side views

Navigate: You then choose which data you want to view (model or observation, field, start time and valid time, vertical coordinate)

Compare: This tells you what you are looking at on the screen so make sure if you change your navigation (e.g. change model) you also change it here. When you are viewing more than one model click 'Add' to decide which panel shows which data set

Under Settings:

You can alter colour bars, ranges of plotting, put on coastlines or switch map labels on and off.

FOREST software is updated on a regular basis and is still in rapid development. The data visualised from this website is updated as soon as it is available, hence there should be real time data available for investigating forecasts, nowcasts (events that are happening now) as well as the ability to go backwards in time as long as the archive allows.

This is not an operational service and will go down from time to time for maintenance and updates. If the service is down for a prolonged period, please check back here for any messages or contact us via github.

Anyone can download and use FOREST on their own data. A tutorial on how to install a local version and run it with your own data is given in the documentation. The version of FOREST that is launched from this website uses data from the Met Office Regional Model Evaluation and Development team and is predominantly intended for science collaboration with National Meteorological Services in Southeast Asia and Africa.

If you do not have access and think you should, please contact us using the links below.

Get involved! FOREST is open source software and depends on the wider community to contribute to it and help it evolve. If there is a feature which has a glitch or is not working properly, we rely on you to report it or raise an issue in github (also check that nobody else has already raised the same issue). Better still, you can edit the code yourself and submit a pull request so that everyone can benefit. For information on how to get started with contributing, read the developers guide.