NWS Turns to HPC, AI to Power Next-Gen Forecasting

The critical watches and warnings issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) inform everything from a firefighter’s deployment to wildfires to the public’s beach plans. This information is powered by some of the most advanced computational infrastructure in the world. According to David Michaud, director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction’s Central Operations at the NWS, high-performance computing (HPC) is the indispensable foundation that turns raw atmospheric data into actionable public safety information.

Michaud joined GovCast to discuss HPC and the IT systems accelerating science at NWS, including the service’s operational supercomputers capable of calculating up to 14 quadrillion calculations per second.

Michaud also talked about the burgeoning role of AI/ML in weather prediction. These new predictive models are not intended to replace the traditional NWP models, but to complement them.