The aim of the HIRLAM programme is to develop and maintain a numerical short-range weather forecasting system for operational use by the participating institutes.
The collaboration resulted in successful launch of the limited area Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model, HIRLAM forecast system, which has been used in the HIRLAM member services for routine weather prediction of up to 3 days at a grid resolution of 3 to 16 km.
Since 2006, the HIRLAM cooperation shifted its focus to the development of meso-scale (convection-permitting) numerical weather prediction system (HARMONIE Archived 2014-01-11 at the Wayback Machine) through close collaboration with the ALADIN consortium (led by Meteo France) and the ECMWF (European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasting).
Through collaboration with the ALADIN consortium, a 52-ensemble Pan-European Grand Limited Area Ensemble Prediction System (GLAMEPS) has been developed by the HIRLAM programme.
With a resolution of ca 8 km grid size GLAMEPS has been operational since 2013, to serve the needs of 2-day probabilistic forecasts at the HIRLAM and ALADIN member services.