America's open global model
GFS
NOAA / National Weather Service · United States
Resolution
11–25 km
Run by
NOAA (USA)
Model id
gfs_seamless
The Global Forecast System (GFS) is run by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and is fully open data. Its output feeds countless apps and websites worldwide.
GFS updates four times a day and runs out to 16 days. It is a dependable all-rounder, though for medium-range temperature it is often edged out by ECMWF. Open-Meteo blends higher-resolution regional NOAA models into the "seamless" GFS product used here.
Known strengths
Frequent updatesOpen data16-day range
The other models we compare
ECMWF IFS
European Centre (EU)
ICON
DWD (Germany)
GEM
Env. Canada
ARPEGE/AROME
Météo-France
JMA GSM/MSM
JMA (Japan)
UKMO
UK Met Office
Want to see how GFS is performing right now? Open any city page and check the accuracy leaderboard — it ranks all seven models by how close they've actually been for that city over the last 30 days.