diff --git a/Jupyter_Notebooks/get_era5_forecasts.sh b/Jupyter_Notebooks/get_era5_forecasts.sh
index 5c7b00c02cb957020fc5d236ba7ded684856de78..57ec979d003132aeadac9316ff2e9992f658ffd9 100755
--- a/Jupyter_Notebooks/get_era5_forecasts.sh
+++ b/Jupyter_Notebooks/get_era5_forecasts.sh
@@ -50,18 +50,21 @@ for hh in ${hh_list[@]}; do
         ncrename -O -d time,fcst_hour -v time,fcst_hour ${outfile} ${outfile}
         ncap2 -O -s 'fcst_hour=int(fcst_hour)' ${outfile} ${outfile}
 	
-	# add ground truth data and persistence forecast from trained model
-	patt=${indir_ref}/vfp_date_${date1}${hh0}_sample_ind*.nc
-	if ls $patt 1>/dev/null 2<&1; then
-	   file_src=`ls $patt`
-	   ncks -d fcst_hour,5,11 -v 2t_ref,2t_persistence_fcst -A ${file_src} ${outfile}
-	else 
-	   echo "Could not find reference data for ${date2}..."
-	   mv ${outfile} "${oufile/.nc/_ref_miss.nc}"
-	fi
+        # add ground truth data and persistence forecast from trained model
+        patt=${indir_ref}/vfp_date_${date1}${hh0}_sample_ind*.nc
+        if ls $patt 1>/dev/null 2<&1; then
+           file_src=`ls $patt`
+           ncks -d fcst_hour,5,11 -v 2t_ref,2t_persistence_fcst -A ${file_src} ${outfile}
+        else
+           echo "Could not find reference data for ${date2}..."
+           mv ${outfile} "${oufile/.nc/_ref_miss.nc}"
+        fi
 
         date1="$(date -u --date="$date1 tomorrow" '+%Y%m%d')"
         date2="$(date -u --date="$date2 tomorrow" '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:00')"
    done
 done
+
+# finally merge all data into a single file
+cdo -v mergetime ${outdir}/*_allfc.nc ${outdir}/${yr}_era5_short_range_fcst