A nice story for all the nerds out there.

Met Éireann today announced the launch of a new supercomputer, in partnership with Denmark, Iceland and the Netherlands. The computer will enhance short-term forecasting capabilities, aiding Ireland in preparing for the effects of climate change.

In a statement issued this morning, Met Éireann noted: “With global temperatures projected to increase further over the next decades, weather patterns are expected to become more extreme and more challenging to forecast.”

The supercomputer, built by Hewlitt Packard, will perform 4,000 trillion calculations per second and handle millions of weather observations every 24 hour — providing up-to-date detailed weather reports which will be crucial during bouts of extreme weather.

The computer is expected to be online by 2023.

Touting the benefits of the new supercomputer, Met Éireann say that it will serve the following purposes:

• Provide more accurate and timely weather warnings that will allow our emergency services to prepare for potential impacts of severe weather;
• Help people and communities make better decisions to protect lives, homes and businesses when impacted by extreme weather events such as heatwaves, flooding or heavy snow;
• Enable the agricultural sector to make earlier decisions to protect and better manage their crops and livestock;
• Provide more timely and focused information to marine communities;
• Support the transport and energy sectors with more detailed and timely weather information to allow increased economic and environmental benefits.

Eoin Moran, Director of Met Éireann, said: “The UWC-West supercomputer is the first step in a powerful collaboration between weather services in Europe which will allow Ireland to meet the growing challenge of forecasting high impact weather events with much greater confidence.

“Our countries have a long history of working together in weather prediction research. Denmark, The Netherlands, Iceland and Ireland bound the North East Atlantic Area and are now combining resources to best predict the weather that impacts this region.

“This is particularly important in the context of the influence of climate change on the predictably of weather systems as the new supercomputer will allow for the incorporation of the most up to date weather forecasting methodologies.”

Interestingly, the supercomputer will be entirely powered by Iceland hydropower and geothermal energy sources.