• About Us
  • Partnership Opportunities
  • Privacy Policy

Data Center Frontier

Charting the future of data centers and cloud computing.

  • Cloud
    • Hyperscale
  • Colo
    • Site Selection
    • Interconnection
  • Energy
    • Sustainability
  • Cooling
  • Technology
    • Internet of Things
    • AI & Machine Learning
    • Edge Computing
    • Virtual Reality
    • Autonomous Cars
    • 5G Wireless
    • Satellites
  • Design
    • Servers
    • Storage
    • Network
  • Voices
  • Podcast
  • White Papers
  • Resources
    • COVID-19
    • Events
    • Newsletter
    • Companies
    • Data Center 101
  • Jobs
You are here: Home / Featured / Satellites, Supercomputers and Big Data Help Refine Storm Forecasts

Satellites, Supercomputers and Big Data Help Refine Storm Forecasts

By Doug Mohney - September 10, 2021

Satellites, Supercomputers and Big Data Help Refine Storm Forecasts

The HERA supercomputer in West Virginia supports weather modeling for NOAA and the National Weather Service to improve the prediction of high-impact weather events. (Image: NOAA)

LinkedinTwitterFacebookSubscribe
Mail

As Hurricane Ida and other recent storms illustrate, real-time weather data collection and accurate forecasting are essential for protecting lives and property, as well as verifying the inevitable insurance claims when natural disasters occur.

Environmental data collection using small satellites is the latest refinement to building better, more accurate weather modeling, feeding information into supercomputing data centers around the world.

Today, NOAA has 40 petaflops of supercomputing capacity for weather predicting and research with HPC facilities located in Colorado, New Jersey, Mississippi, Tennessee, and West Virginia. NOAA’s latest computer, Hera, was built by HPE/CRAY and has 63,840 processors along with scratch disk capability of 18.5 Petabytes with a top performance of 3.27 petaflops.

Europe and Japan operate similar large scale HPC data centers dedicated to global forecasting (predicting the weather) and climate reanalysis (checking how well predictions matched what happened), with all national organizations constantly planning upgrades to increase processing speeds and data collection and storage.

At least 18 of the world’s top 500 supercomputers are dedicated to weather and climate research, according to the Top 500 list, with another three dedicated to weather forecasting.

Weather predictions are only as good as the data available to feed into increasingly complex software models, with information collected from ground stations, commercial aircraft traffic, instrument-laden balloons, and satellite data.

In the spring of 2020, forecasting accuracy took a hit due to the drastic decline in commercial aircraft flights with the COVID-19 lockdowns and the concurrent loss of data from those aircraft. Under normal conditions, aircraft around the world generate over 800,000 weather observations per day, but measurements dropped anywhere from 75 to 90 percent.

In the spring of 2020, forecasting accuracy took a hit due to the drastic decline in commercial aircraft flights with the COVID-19 lockdowns.

Satellite data provides a true worldwide snapshot of weather conditions independent of other sources, with the United States in cooperation with other nations operating a fleet of large satellites using state-of-the-art instruments to collect twice-daily global measurements of atmospheric, terrestrial, and oceanic conditions, including sea and land surface temperatures, clouds, rainfall, atmospheric temperature, and water vapor.

Large amounts of data are collected by these satellites, with the JPSS-1 operated by NOAA generates 4.5 terabytes of data per day while the Suomi-NPP satellite producing up to 3.9 TB/day.

How Commercial Satellites Support Weather Models

“A seven-day forecast can accurately predict the weather about 80 percent of the time and a five-day forecast can accurately predict the weather approximately 90 percent of the time. However, a 10-day—or longer—forecast is only right about half the time.” — NOAA’s SciJinks website.

A lot happens on the surface of the Earth in the twelve hours between government weather satellite passes, opening opportunities for commercial companies to provide additional satellite observations for supplementing and increasing weather data. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was authorized by Congress in 2016 to pilot purchases of commercial weather data for use in its weather modeling and forecasting, awarding initial contracts under $1 million each to GeoOptics and Spire Global.

Over the past two years, NOAA has steadily increased the amount of data observations per day it is purchasing and the number of months it will commit to purchasing the data under an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quality (IDIQ) contract to buy up to $23 million dollars of data from the firms. NOAA started out by purchasing 500 GPS radio occultation (GPS-RO) profiles per day for thirty days from Spire Global last year. In the latest award on September 1, 2021, NOAA agreed to purchase 3,000 profiles per day from Spire over a six month period.

Founded in 2021, Spire operates a constellation of over 110 LEMUR-2 satellites, each one roughly the size of a wine bottle box at 30 cm x 10 cm 10 cm. The LEMUR-2 has a sensitive radio receiver capable of picking up ship and aircraft tracking messages as well as the constant sounds of global positioning satellite signals broadcast out by U.S., Russian, and European constellations.

According to Spire’s SEC SPAC filing, the company collects a total of 5 terabytes of data per day, an amount of information that no doubt makes Amazon AWS, its cloud provider of record, quite happy.

Spire uses global GPS signal traffic to collect two sorts of environmental data. GPS radio occultation (GPS-RO) measures the density of atmosphere by the delays of radio signals, providing temperature, pressure, and water vapor information. GNSS reflectometry is a newly introduced feature using reflected GPS signals from the planet’s surface to provide information on soil moisture and sea ice.

Spire’s fleet of satellites currently generate up to 10,000 GPS-RO profiles per day. “The radio occultation measurements on a daily basis produce gigabytes of data,” said Dallas Masters, Earth Intelligence / GNSS Director for Spire. The weather forecasting community would like to get up to 20,000 GPS-RO profiles per day as an initial goal, but Spire believes there’s plenty of room to scale upward to meet the needs of global weather forecaster.

“Spire’s going to get up to 100,000 profiles a day at some point in the future,” Masters said, with the company increasing the number of satellites it has in orbit when the market wants more data. “We’ve come over the hump of getting the (GPS-RO) data tested by weather agencies and seeing the maturity of those data and its impact. The expectations is those agencies are going to see those benefits and then continue to increase those purchases in terms of volume.”

Using Satellite Data to Guide Policy Decisions

Start-up Orbital Micro Systems (OMS) is just starting to grow its efforts to generate and sell commercial weather data. The company has flown a prototype satellite over the past two years, using a customized microwave radiometer instrument to capture 3D temperature and moisture profiles of the atmosphere. Two second-generation satellites are being built for launch later this year and in 2022, with the company focusing on the insurance sector along with data sales to NOAA, the Department of Defense, and other organizations.

“We set out to form this company around the idea of the idea of improving and coming up with new ideas for managing environment risk,” said Michael Hurowitz, OMS Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer. “Just as important as the (satellite) enhanced observation system are the data analytics, data processing tools, ability to extract information from raw sensor information and using it to drive business and government policies.”

A single OMS satellite will generate 5 GB/day, with a pair of satellites able to provide detailed environmental information about a location on the planet’s surface up to four times a day under ideal conditions. Hurowitz eventually expects to have a constellation of up to 50 satellites providing global coverage and the ability to provide updated information every 15 to 30 minutes. OMS is an Amazon AWS customer, but its data systems are built to be cloud-agnostic, so it can provide customer-specific deployments on other services and for private deployments.

Insurance Analysis via Space Data

Working with the financial industry, Hurowitz sees OMS supporting parametric insurance policies, with supplemental coverage policies coming into play with specific weather events. For example, a homeowner could purchase supplemental insurance for wind or rainfall damage. Satellite data would be used to verify the triggering event for the policy coming into force and paying out if you had hurricane-force winds or excessive rain in your area.

Customized weather products are likely to become a data center growth driver in the years to come across multiple verticals, including maritime, agriculture, finance, energy, and insurance sectors. In the future, Spire, OMS, and other companies anticipate future growth moving beyond “Level 1” data providers feeding minimally processed information into other people’s weather models into more value-added Level 2 processed data and Level 3 application services available via subscription.

Already Spire is teaming up with third-parties to build customized data products and applications for clients such as enterprise clients like Chevron and start-up companies such as PredictWind.com providing sport sailors accurate open ocean wind speed and direction. OMS anticipates building its own applications in partnership with vertical partners.

LinkedinTwitterFacebookSubscribe
Mail

Tagged With: HPC

Newsletters

Stay informed: Get our weekly updates!

Are you a new reader? Follow Data Center Frontier on Twitter or Facebook.

About Doug Mohney

Doug Mohney has been working in and writing about IT and satellite industries for over 20 years. His real world experience including stints at two start-ups, a commercial internet service provider that went public in 1997 for $150 million and a satellite internet broadband company that didn't.Follow Doug on Twitter at @DougonIPComm

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Voices of the Industry

Overcoming Supply Chain Roadblocks: How to Avoid Disruptions in Your Data Center

Overcoming Supply Chain Roadblocks: How to Avoid Disruptions in Your Data Center The data center industry continues to experience significant global supply chain problems. Brett Williams of Service Express, explores the importance of leveraging the secondary hardware market to overcome supply chain roadblocks.

White Papers

data center migration

Migrate Your Data Center Worry-Free

In this new white paper, Flexential provides best practices for IT teams looking to optimize their data center migration by minimizing downtime and avoiding hurdles.

Get this PDF emailed to you.

We always respect your privacy and we never sell or rent our list to third parties. By downloading this White Paper you are agreeing to our terms of service. You can opt out at any time.

DCF Spotlight

Data center modules on display at the recent Edge Congress conference in Austin, Texas. (Photo: Rich Miller)

Edge Computing is Poised to Remake the Data Center Landscape

Data center leaders are investing in edge computing and edge solutions and actively looking at new ways to deploy edge capacity to support evolving business and user requirements.

An aerial view of major facilities in Data Center Alley in Ashburn, Virginia. (Image: Loudoun County)

Northern Virginia Data Center Market: The Focal Point for Cloud Growth

The Northern Virginia data center market is seeing a surge in supply and an even bigger surge in demand. Data Center Frontier explores trends, stats and future expectations for the No. 1 data center market in the country.

See More Spotlight Features

Newsletters

Get the Latest News from Data Center Frontier

Job Listings

RSS Job Openings | Pkaza Critical Facilities Recruiting

  • Critical Power Energy Manager - Data Center Development - Ashburn, VA
  • Site Development Manager - Data Center - Ashburn, VA
  • Data Center Facility Operations Director - Chicago, IL
  • Electrical Engineer - Senior - Dallas, TX
  • Mechanical Commissioning Engineer - Calgary, Alberta

See More Jobs

Data Center 101

Data Center 101: Mastering the Basics of the Data Center Industry

Data Center 101: Mastering the Basics of the Data Center Industry

Data Center Frontier, in partnership with Open Spectrum, brings our readers a series that provides an introductory guidebook to the ins and outs of the data center and colocation industry. Think power systems, cooling, solutions, data center contracts and more. The Data Center 101 Special Report series is directed to those new to the industry, or those of our readers who need to brush up on the basics.

  • Data Center Power
  • Data Center Cooling
  • Strategies for Data Center Location
  • Data Center Pricing Negotiating
  • Cloud Computing

See More Data center 101 Topics

About Us

Charting the future of data centers and cloud computing. We write about what’s next for the Internet, and the innovations that will take us there. We tell the story of the digital economy through the data center facilities that power cloud computing and the people who build them. Read more ...
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

About Our Founder

Data Center Frontier is edited by Rich Miller, the data center industry’s most experienced journalist. For more than 20 years, Rich has profiled the key role played by data centers in the Internet revolution. Meet the DCF team.

TOPICS

  • 5G Wireless
  • Cloud
  • Colo
  • Connected Cars
  • Cooling
  • Cornerstone
  • Coronavirus
  • Design
  • Edge Computing
  • Energy
  • Executive Roundtable
  • Featured
  • Finance
  • Hyperscale
  • Interconnection
  • Internet of Things
  • Machine Learning
  • Network
  • Podcast
  • Servers
  • Site Selection
  • Social Business
  • Special Reports
  • Storage
  • Sustainability
  • Videos
  • Virtual Reality
  • Voices of the Industry
  • Webinar
  • White Paper

Copyright Data Center Frontier LLC © 2022