IBM Supercomputer to Improve National Weather Forecasts

National Weather Service Selects RS/6000 SP

Somers, N.Y (October 14, 1998) – an IBM RS/6000 SP — is more than ten times more powerful than the system made famous during Deep Blue’s historic 1997 victory over chess grand master Garry Kasparov.
The RS/6000 SP will allow the National Weather Service’s National Centers for Environmental Prediction in Camp Springs, Md., to operate more sophisticated models of the atmosphere and oceans to improve national weather, flood and climate forecasting.
The four year, $35.6 million contract was announced by the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“Accurate weather forecasting is one of the great scientific achievements of the 20th century. We have reached unprecedented levels of accuracy in recent years as a result of much research, modernization and improvements such as supercomputers, radar, satellites and other technologies,” said Department of Commerce Secretary William M. Daley. “We eagerly await the next generation of computational power because we know we can do even better in the future.”
“The accuracy of environmental forecast models today is approaching levels undreamed of 10 years ago,” said D. James Baker, under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “As a result of this new supercomputer, the National Weather Service can run higher resolution models with improved physics to produce forecasts with better resolution and accuracy and valid at longer time scales than ever before.”
The supercomputer, which will be housed at the Suitland Federal Center in Suitland, Md., will be installed in December and will be integrated into operations beginning in the spring of 1999. The transition to the system will be completed in late 1999.
Numerical weather models provide important guidance to weather forecasters. The models incorporate a variety of observations including temperature, wind, precipitation, pressure, and a host of other meteorological information from sources on the ground, in the air and in space. The observations are processed by powerful computers that then generate predictions for forecasters, allowing them to anticipate weather conditions from hours to weeks in advance or, as in the case of the recent El Nino, many months in advance.

Source: IBM

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