Numerical weather prediction depends essentially on high-quality upper-air wind observations to constrain the initial conditions. This study by Martin et al. investigates the impact of spaceborne Doppler wind lidar measurements from the Aeolus mission on forecast quality of the operational global forecasting system with ICON at Deutscher Wetterdienst. An observing system experiment shows an overall beneficial impact, and the authors go one important step further and present illustrative examples how events with strong forecast quality improvements can be related to specific dynamical phenomena such as ENSO and the extratropical transition of tropical cyclones.