Met Office forecasts £2bn benefits from new £97m Cray supercomputer

Machine will be capable of more than 16,000 trillion calculations per second

The Met Office is to take delivery of a 140-tonne £97m Cray supercomputer in a bid to improve the accuracy of its weather forecasts and yield £2bn worth of socio-economic benefits in the process.

The supercomputer will be 13 times more powerful than the current Met Office system, able to provide hourly forecast updates and highly detailed information for precise geographical areas.

The machine will be capable of more than 16,000 trillion calculations per second when it is operational in September 2015 at the Exeter Science Park.

Computing power on such a scale should help the UK more accurately predict disruptive weather events such as heavy snowfall and flooding.

It will also be able to assess the impact of climate change on specific regions, such as the occurrence of floods, droughts and heatwaves.

The supercomputer will achieve this level of forecasting by creating higher resolution weather models than those currently used by the Met Office. This will enable the pinpointing of small-scale, high-impact weather.

In practical use, these high-resolution models could be used to predict the timing and risk of fog over airports, for example, and will allow scientists to provide better weather forecasts for the UK months in advance.

The government predicts that the forecasting benefits of the supercomputer will help to deliver £2bn worth of socio-economic benefits to the UK by facilitating better advance preparation and contingency plans to help protect homes and businesses ahead of adverse weather.

Rob Varley, Met Office chief executive, believes the supercomputer will lead to a "step change" in weather forecasting and climate prediction.

"The new supercomputer, together with improved observations, science and modelling, will deliver better forecasts and advice to support UK business, the public and government," he said.

"It will help to make the UK more resilient to high impact weather and other environmental risks."

Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, believes the supercomputer will help make the UK "the best place in the world" for meteorological science and research, as well as predicting high impact weather.

"By bringing world-class technology to the South West, we are also boosting regional investment and expertise, creating a stronger economy and fairer society," he said.

While the supercomputer will be up and running in just over a year, the government expects that it will reach peak capacity two years later in 2017.

Despite plans to harness supercomputer technology, the Met Office recently said that the increasing amounts of data being stored by government departments means it will not be technically possible to share all its data in the future.

This story first appeared at our sister site, V3.co.uk