These datasets contain Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) meteorological data produced by the operational UKV (United Kingdom Variable-resolution) configuration of the Met Office Unified Model. These datasets have been processed into a form suitable for use in the Met Office NAME (Numerical Atmospheric-dispersion Modelling Environment) dispersion model, although they may also be of wider use to the academic community as a source of high-resolution gridded NWP met data for the UK area.

In order for NAME to be able to predict movement of atmospheric parcels (forwards or backwards in time), it needs to know what the weather is doing (in terms of pressure, temperature, wind, humidity etc). NAME uses the Met Office Numerical Weather Prediction model outputs as its source for weather data.

The NWP data used by NAME is different from other forms of Met Office NWP as follows:
- It has been split into spatial partitions (i.e. different parts of the world/domain are in different files)
- It has been reformatted into PP format

However, from the perspective of the raw data, NWP data is generically useful for a whole range of scientific research and applications.