More accurate weather forecasts and storm predictions will be made by Met Éireann thanks to a new supercomputer, the forecaster has said.
Eoin Sherlock, Head of the Forecasting Division at Met Éireann, said the supercomputer will provide Met Éireann with a higher resolution view of the weather forecast, leading to better forecasting and warnings.
The first supercomputer is called the Aurora, and the second Borealis, he said. The Aurora will produce the forecast, and the Borealis will conduct the research.
Mr Sherlock told RTÉ's News At One: "It will allow us to run our weather model at a higher resolution, so currently it is 2.5 kilometres, and we're moving up to 2 kilometres, so that’s going to give the weather model a better picture of what lies beneath.
"So, we will get a better picture, of let’s say, the Wicklow mountains or the Cork and Kerry mountains."
He said it will help Met Éireann forecast how the weather front will interact with those features. The forecaster hopes the new system will be particularly useful for forecasting storms.
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Mr Sherlock said the computer will allow them to run the forecast model every hour, rather than every three hours.
He said: "So, that means every hour, we are going to have a new forecast of where the model is.
"We're going to be able to track the model, because every hour, we’re going to be putting our observations in satellites, weather bias etc., into the system, and that is going to give us a better position of where the storm track is."
He explained that calculations are made by determining levels in the atmosphere. The advancement, he said, will move them from 65 to 90 levels.
Mr Sherlock said this will provide a better idea of what the weather is doing, for example, he said it will show "where the thunderstorms are going to develop, at what temperature, what height we can expect thunderstorms to kick off...what does the storm look like."
The supercomputer is based underground for security reasons and, for example, protection against earthquakes, he said.
He added that the infrastructure is already in place and it will be run by hydrapower and geothermal energy.
