Met Eireann promises more accurate storm predictions thanks to new supercomputer

Met Éireann says its ability to accurately predict storms and other severe weather events has been enhanced thanks to a new supercomputer which has just been deployed.

The national forecaster has joined forces with colleagues in Denmark, Iceland and the Netherlands to respond to climate change with more timely weather forecasting on the new supercomputer which is now operational. 

This, it says, will help each nation to prepare for the impacts of weather patterns, which are expected to become more extreme and more challenging to forecast.

Due to it's processing power and speed, the new supercomputer will also allow for forecasts and storm predictions to be updated more often than is currently thee case.

READ ALSO: Ireland storm risk increases as weather models show brutal conditions on the way 

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.

"Overall, this new model version allows us to get a better handle on the uncertainty of the predictions," he explained

"Numerical Weather Prediction models are run a number of times with slightly different initial conditions, each of these then providing slightly different outcomes. This is known as an Ensemble Prediction System (EPS) and Met Éireann’s previous operational model consisted of fifteen EPS 'members', or individual runs. With the new supercomputer, we have doubled that number, so our probabilistic analyses and the forecasters’ understanding of complex scenarios will certainly benefit from that,” he added.

Eoin Moran, Director of Met Éireann, has welcomed the collaboration between the different forecasters: “Pulling together the expertise from our four countries allows us to prepare for the future faster and more efficiently. Making our common forecasting system operational is the culmination of five years of intense cooperation on computer and models by the four institutes. It represents not only a technical achievement but the confirmation that joining expertise and experience can lead to greater things," he said.

The new model domain extensively covers an area from East Greenland to southern Italy, dividing the geographical area in squares of 2km in size, an improvement compared to the 2.5km grid of the previous model version Met Éireann operated. The model represents the atmosphere vertically in the form of 90 levels, a substantial increase from the 65 levels of the previous operational model. These are resolution improvements which translate into better representation of the meteorological parameters across the domain.

The new model is running every hour, while the previous computing capabilities allowed it to run every three hours. This means more timely model updates to the forecasters, feeding the Met Éireann processes for updating the forecast and issuing warnings.