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<h1>Forecasting weather with powerful supercomputers</h1>
<p>Written by <a href="ed.html">Ed</a></p>
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<p class="lead">Supercomputers are used for weather forecasts by running through thousands of different simulations using information recorded by weather planes that have recorded atmospheric pressure and humidity.</p>
<p>Supercomputers get their power from thousands of processor cores which means the computer is able to perform multiple calculations at once. The huge number of cores is coupled with a massive amount of RAM that is in the region of 500TB+. All of the weather modelling is done through advanced and very complex mathematics that would take weeks if it was done by hand. The process of forecasting is known as numerical weather prediction. This includes calculations such as three-dimensional fluid dynamics that have been adapted from two-dimensional fluid dynamics as even in two dimensions fluid dynamics is still not fully understood. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navier%E2%80%93Stokes_equations">Navier-Stokes equation</a> helps to bridge the gap between the two dimensions. The forecasts that you see on your television or phone every day is just the forecast model that had the highest probability of occurring.<a href="#references">¹</a>
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The main reason that forecasts are quite often wrong is due to the chaotic nature of the partial differential equations, that are included in the Navier-Stokes equation, that govern the movement of clouds and warm air in the atmosphere. Since, at the moment, it is impossible to solve the equations exactly, the errors grow the further down the timeline the forecast is calculating. Hence you should only look at the forecast for perhaps the next day and not a week's time.<a href="#references">²</a>
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Numerical weather prediction is also used for predicting where wildfires are going to occur or spread by using data about the weather and winds. This allows emergency services to react quickly and try to stay a step ahead of the fire by dousing the areas that are forecast to catch fire next, allowing them to contain the wildfire until it burns out in one area. An example of this is <a href="https://firemap.sdsc.edu">Firemap</a>, it was developed back in 2015 by the USCD WIFIRE collaboration. This forecast is openly available for the general public who may live in a wildfire-prone region of California. Firemap was funded by the National Science Foundation.
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<p id="references">1. <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/supercomputers-tech-weather-forecasting-tools-4120844">Supercomputers: Machine Meteorologists That Help Issue Your Forecast</a><br>
2. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_weather_prediction">Numerical Weather Prediction</a></p>
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