NWS Announces Big Computer Upgrade

Posted by timothy on Monday May 20, 2013 @12:04AM from the in-these-troubled-economic-times dept.

riverat1 writes "After being embarrassed when the Europeans did a better job forecasting Sandy than the National Weather Service Congress allocated $25 million ($23.7 after sequestration) in the Sandy relief bill for upgrades to forecasting and supercomputer resources. The NWS announced that their main forecasting computer will be upgraded from the current 213 TeraFlops to 2,600 TFlops by fiscal year 2015, over a twelve-fold increase. The upgrade is expected to increase the horizontal grid scale by a factor of 3 allowing more precise forecasting of local features of weather. The some of the allocated funds will also be used to hire some contract scientists to improve the forecast model physics and enhance the collection and assimilation of data."

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Use the old one to mine bitcoin by Anonymous Coward · 2013-05-20 00:15 · Score: 4, Funny

maybe it would pay for the upgrade.
so.. by msauve · 2013-05-20 00:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Why not just pay attention to the European forecasts, which would cost nothing?

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"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
23.7 instead of 25M by Anonymous Coward · 2013-05-20 00:34 · Score: 1, Funny

Looks like they'll have to shut down most essential weather services. The People have to be taught a lesson about telling government to spend less money.