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NEW SUPERCOMPUTER HELPS NOAA'S WEATHER SERVICE IMPROVE SPEED AND
ACCURACY OF WEATHER FORECASTS
January 18,
2000 One of the world's most powerful supercomputers is now
generating faster and more precise predictions of the atmosphere,
resulting in more accurate forecasts for every city in the nation,
NOAA announced today. This new
supercomputer is five timesand eventually will be 28 timesfaster
than its predecessor, which allows NOAA's
National Weather Service to improve the accuracy of local and
national forecasts and warning lead times for potentially dangerous
severe weather.
"This
new supercomputer puts us closer to reaching our goal of becoming
America's no surprise weather service," said National Weather
Service Director John
J. Kelly Jr. "This gives our forecasters more sophisticated
models of the atmosphere and oceans, which act as blueprints for
upcoming weather patterns. On a daily basis, we should see a 10
percent improvement in predicting temperatures, humidity and pinpointing
when, where and how much rainfall will occur."
The new supercomputer, known as a 786 processor IBM System Parallel,
replaces a Cray C-90 that served the National Weather Service since
1994. Currently, the IBM SP processes data at a speed of 690 billion
instructions per second. When upgraded in September with even more
advanced technology and additional processors, the supercomputer
will process weather data at a speed of 2.5 trillion instructions
per second. This final upgrade will make the IBM SP supercomputer
28 times faster than the Cray C-90 and provide higher-resolution
weather forecast models. The supercomputer is located at the Commerce
Department's Census Bowie Computer Center in Bowie, Md.
"This
new supercomputer provides better data for more accurate seven-day
forecasts and beyond," said Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA's
National Centers for Environmental Prediction. "Forecasters
now can apply research based on more data they will collect. They'll
also be able to test new weather models more effectively and more
quickly add new results into the forecast process," he said.
The supercomputer
generates numerical weather models, which provide important guidance
to forecasters. The models are a result of observations taken from
the ground and air, such as temperature, wind, precipitation, atmospheric
pressure and other meteorological information. These observations
result in the collection of billions of "bytes" of data
the supercomputer uses each day. The supercomputer's added strength
and speed in processing weather data will give meteorologists better
models to forecast more accurately the intensity of hurricanes this
season, which begins on June 1.
"With
even more computational power of the new supercomputer, the National
Weather Service will only add to the forecast successes from the
last century by saving more lives and protecting property,"
Kelly said.
NOTE
TO MEDIA: Video footage of the new IBM SP supercomputer is available in
Beta-SP or VHS format from Video Transfer of Rockville, Md., (301)
881-0270.
For more information contact John
Leslie at (301) 713-0622.
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