Supercomputers For Meteoroligist...01/21/00

(NOAA) 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, the NOAA announced earlier this week. This new supercomputer is five times -- and eventually will be 28 times -- faster 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.  Further information from the NOAA site at http://www.nws.noaa.gov - use the links for The Office of Public Affairs.