London is known to be a rainy city, which probably makes dressing for the weather tricky. Luckily, Brits are about to be able to predict the weather better with the help of a supercomputer.
British Met Office claims it will become the best in the world at forecasting the weather after buying the Cray XC40 supercomputer with a processing power of 100,000 Playstations.
The £100-million ($156 million) supercomputer will help the weather service inform residents of British regions with more precise hourly forecasts, replacing the current six hour current forecast updates. The new supercomputer is being built with funding from taxpayers and will be 13 times more powerful than the system weather services currently use.
It will also provide accurate information for emergency services, airports and train companies.
"Everything from the simple question of 'Do I need to take my umbrella?' through to really important questions around contingency planning for severe weather, even longer-term planning in terms of energy supplies for the coming winter," says Met Office chief executive Rob Varley. "All of these decisions are crucial to the running of the country, keeping people safe and helping people prosper, all these are underpinned by supercomputing."
The supercomputer will improve flood warnings and reduce transportation delays and is expected to save the economy £200-billion by 2020.
Britain will now be able to better predict the weather since the supercomputer accurately assesses weather patterns by preforming 16,000 trillion calculations per second. With the improved accuracy, the weather for the next day will be as reliable as the 12-hour forecast of that day.
The Cray XC40 will do more than accurately provide the forecast. It will also provide precise information about long-term climate change in British regions.
"I think a nation that is as taken with the weather as Britain ought to be leading the world in forecasting it," says Science minister Greg Clark. "This makes us world leaders, not only in talking about the weather, but forecasting it too."
The supercomputer weighs 140-tons, as much as 22 double decker buses, and will take up two large rooms. It will be housed at the Met Office and Exeter Science Park and will be turned on next fall, reaching its full capacity in 2017.
Photo Credit: Gary Knight/Flickr
