Supercomputers Race to Predict Storms

pillageplunder writes "CNN has an interesting article on how different supercomputers from around the world are working to predict large storms tracks. The 3 days it takes now has been cut in half. Cool read."

Comments

the 3 days it takes?

[Kr3m3Puff]

Actually if you read the article you will realize that it only takes about an hour of number crunching, but that the three day storm path accuracy errors have been cut in half... and that 5-day forcast is getting much more accurate.

I guess we should read articles before submitting them...

Re:Earth Simulator

[iamthemoog]

According to New Scientist 28/08/2004, it's a little more to do with long-term climate change, rather than predicting if you need your umbrella tomorrow in Bristol... Earthquakes and the Earth's magnetic field are also modelled too apparently...

A snip at $430 million...

Re:Using Fortran, eh?

[gowen]

For some reason, Fortran is still used for many scientific programs, and this software probably fits in this category. Don't ask me why they chose it, though; I'm not a developer.

Brief answer :
i) because most numerical weather codes are already written in Fortran. This means that people with the right scientific knowledge tend to be Fortran programmers, and makes porting a whole lot easier.
ii) Fortran compilers are the ones where the most work has gone into optimising the hardcore mathematical routines. Thus, the compiled code has traditionally been faster. This may no longer be true.