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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SPEAKS UP

In the article, "ECMWF WORKSHOP -- TERAFLOP/S CHALLENGES FOR NWP, METEOROLOGY," [108687.html] Christopher Lazou writes "In weather and climate numerical modelling, the debate on price/performance of commodity systems verses special purpose systems is somewhat irrelevant. When a hurricane is heading for land, capability computing at a level required to deliver advance predictions in time to implement protection procedures is the only measure worth considering."

Mr. Lazou must be aware that "commodity" systems are used throughout the operational weather community. In the USA, National Weather Service hurricane models in support of real-time forecasts are run on an IBM Power4 cluster. The model is re-run on time scales commensurate with the collection of new observational data - several hours. Hurricane protection procedures require warning counted in days. Price/performance, dependability, as well as time to solution, are all critical factors in system selection.

Gary Wohl, New Technology Coordinator
National Weather Service, National Centers for Environmental Prediction,
Central Operations.

Lazou responded by saying:

The point I am making is since the likely damage from a hurricane could run into billions of dollars, dependability, and time to solution, are the critical factors in system selection. A system which is say half the price but does not deliver predictions on time to enable preventable procedures to be put into effect, is utterly useless for this particular application. Whether the system is based on "commodity" systems or using proprietary chips is irrelevant.