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SUPERCOMPUTER UPGRADE ADDS MORE SPEED, PRECISION TO NOAA'S WEATHER SERVICE FORECASTS
At the annual meeting of the
American Meteorological Society in Albuquerque, N.M., National
Weather Service officials said the supercomputer upgrade continues
the momentum toward faster, more accurate weather models that
meteorologists will use to hone their forecasts. "Precision in forecasting—both short-term and long-term—is the goal we are trying to reach," said Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction. "Having advanced technology like the supercomputer gives meteorologists the information they need, at a faster rate, to make forecasts that are more accurate and timely." With the upgrade, the IBM System
Parallel supercomputer now generates weather data at speeds of
over 3 trillion calculations per second, compared to 690 billion
calculations per second before the upgrade. Numerical weather
models, which generate forecasts for up to 16 days into the future,
start by using atmospheric observations, including temperature,
wind speed, precipitation and other oceanographic and satellite
information. These models provide crucial guidance to forecasters
that allows them to predict weather events such as, hurricanes,
floods, severe weather and winter storms days in advance. The
observations result in the collection of billions of "bytes"
of data. The supercomputer is housed at the Commerce Department's Census Bowie Computer Center in Bowie, Md. NOTE TO MEDIA: Video footage of the IBM SP supercomputer is available in Beta-SP or VHS format from Video Transfer of Rockville, Md., (301) 881-0270. Relevant Web Sites Current
winter storm watches, warnings and temperatures across the United
States |
January
16, 2001 — Albuquerque, N.M. — The IBM supercomputer,
which is providing higher-resolution weather models for meteorologists
at 