Hazelwood North CFA get their PAWS dirty

ESS were welcomed warmly to the Gippsland CFA Brigade of Hazelwood North to train and guide the team on how to use their new Portable Automated Weather Systems (PAWS) and 10m wind speed and direction kit.

Weather Station is just PAWSome

Latrobe Valley Express

The PAWS is a compact, stand-alone solution to monitor fire weather behaviour and collect data on the surrounding microclimate. The PAWS is generally used during planned burns or deployed during an active fire. With a fast set up of 10 to 20 minutes, portability and various parameters including temperature/humidity, wind speed and direction, rain and more – the PAWS is a simple solution to more complex problems.

CFA Hazelwood are now filling in gaps in the national network of weather data by contributing information to the Bureau of Meteorology. ESS and the CFA team were able to get out in the field on February 14th 2022, and test the unit(s) which came in at a temperature of 31.8°C out in the blazing sun!

We look forward to working closely with CFA and other agencies to help them measure and report the local weather which is imperative in making crucial decisions for the community.

For inquiries regarding PAWS, please contact ESS Weathertech at sales@essweather.com.

CREDIT: Full article and photos by Alyssa Fritzlaff of the Latrobe Valley Express local newspaper; Volume 23/02/2022

Local Technology Company FTS Celebrates 40 Years of Reliability and Innovation

We’re excited to share that the manufacturers of our fire weather station range are celebrating 40 years of business in the industry! Please rejoice in congratulating FTS by enjoying the article provided by the company below:

“About FTS

FTS helps build resilient communities by reducing the impact of extreme weather events through reliable, secure, and innovative situational awareness. For 40 years, we have provided solutions, services, and support to some of the world’s most sophisticated and demanding environmental monitoring networks. Check out our environmental monitoring solutions in action at fts360overwatch.com.

Media Contact: Alan DeCiantis, Director of Product (250) 508-5389 adeciantis@ftsinc.com

[Langford, BC] – The business consultants said there was no market for the product, yet today FTS sells environmental monitoring solutions worldwide, counts millions in sales, employs over 75 people and is celebrating 40 years of reliability and innovation!

It was the late 1970s when Bill Cave first imagined automating the collection of weather data by marrying radio telemetry to remote electronic monitoring stations. As a researcher with the Canadian Forest Service, he knew the systems were needed. Certain in his vision, in 1980 he began developing his first prototypes in the basement of his home in Victoria.

By 1984, FTS had sold over 200 weather stations across Canada, and by 1990 stations had been installed in over 900 locations across Canada and the United States. In 1997, Kevin Bradley and Brian Bolton purchased FTS from Bill Cave. However, in 2018 Bradley and Bolton made the decision to sell FTS to Advanced Environmental Monitoring (“AEM”), recognizing that FTS would need a significant infusion of capital if it was going to make the leap into the next level of global product and market development. Since that time, FTS has grown steadily in sales, reach, and reputation in the environmental monitoring industry. This year the company has around 5,000 FTS stations transmitting globally.

David Reid, FTS CEO has seen a large amount of growth not only in FTS long-standing fire weather industry, but has helped the company expand into Hydrology, Air Quality and Utilities markets. “Although I have missed working with Brian and Kevin, having the AEM network behind FTS has allowed us to take further steps to solidify our company as a large player in new industries. Our partnerships with our sister companies allows us to provide an entire spectrum of products to our customers.”

“AEM is a collective of innovative environmental monitoring companies that work together to provide the best solutions to our customers,” says Rodney Smith, CEO of AEM. “We purchased FTS for its competitive strength in both fire weather and hydrology solutions. In addition to their products and services, their history of innovation and customer-dedicated culture of the employees has also been a great fit with our existing family of companies, and we are excited to have FTS as part of our group.”

Those working with the company today express pride in being part of FTS culture and reputation.

“It’s interesting to be involved in a company where every year things are getting bigger and better,” says FTS Chief Technology Officer Phil Bartlett, -

who has been with the company since 1994. “We’ve created a formula that works, and we’ve continued to grow organically more than anything. Some companies bloom very early and then fade out of existence pretty quickly—they’ve got a sharp ramp up and a sharp ramp down—but we’ve been slow and steady for the whole life of the company.”

What does Bill Cave say more than 40 years since he began building his first weather stations in his basement? “Let me say that I still feel satisfaction that I was able to build a company that provides good paying employment for a number of people along with job satisfaction and a comfortable corporate culture. It's also a bonus that these jobs result in the protection of forests and clean water.” 

For entire 40th Anniversary article visit our website.”

What is Super Computing and how is it useful in Weather Forecasting?

Introduction
Supercomputing is powerful and is utilised typically, but not limited to areas of science and research. ESS Weathertech (ESS) has been specialising in the supply of supercomputing systems for more than 10 years now through different projects that stretch internationally to countries including Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

To find out the mechanics of supercomputing and more about our contribution to forecasting systems worldwide…keep reading!

What is a Supercomputer?
A supercomputer is a large array of smaller computers and processing equipment that are aggregated to make one large computer. A supercomputer is built for the purpose of solving problems that are far too complex for an ordinary desktop or workstation to process. Ideally the supercomputer will reduce the time to solve problems that may have taken up to months to process and can squash this down to days depending on the procedure and target of the problem.

Supercomputers are generally found in areas of science, engineering, and business to enhance the processing of a complex problem by utilising a large amount of computing power harnessed from each individual node – this method is typically referred to as High Performance Computing (HPC). HPC can be used to run intricate models for forecasting the weather. This is commonly known as Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) where weather data is processed by the computer for modelling purposes.

Components of a Supercomputer
The main guts of a supercomputer is the computer cluster. The cluster is where all the smaller computers are held, generally in a rack mount, and each different computer is referred to as a ‘node.’ The nodes all have processors/cores just like a desktop computer (for example, Intel or AMD), this is the brains of the computer which executes the instructions. The processing power can be measured in teraflops or petaflops (where a FLOPS is a floating-point operation). To get a gauge on the processing power of an HPC, the National Weather Service in America are running supercomputers that operate at a total of 8.4 petaflops – 10,000 times faster than a regular desktop computer!*

Figure 1. NWP and HPC rack mount in Bangladesh

Each individual node needs to “talk” to each other which is performed through a communications network. This can be done via an ‘InfiniBand’, which is a standard of networking communication in HPC that helps transfer data between computers with very high throughput and very low latency so that the links between the nodes doesn’t slow down the combined processing speed between nodes.

Other supercomputer components include monitors, keyboards, power distribution, ethernet switches and uninterruptible power supply (UPS). A UPS is very important in case there is a power failure to ensure power is still provided to the supercomputer so the data is unharmed and processes continue to churn away while the system safely shuts down the supercomputer. If the supercomputer is not shutdown appropriately it can corrupt the data or the software which has catastrophic and costly consequences.  All this equipment is normally stored in a rack mount (see Figure 1.) and in an environmentally controlled cool room.

For weather forecasting, and before the supercomputer processes data, the data needs to be obtained from somewhere. Devices such as radar, weather stations, satellite images, profilers and other sensors measure different atmospheric parameters, collect data and send the data to a central database for storage (e.g. NAS – Network Attached Storage) that can then be used by the supercomputer and consequently sent to an archive for long term storage.

Installed on the hardware is software to process, analyse and visualise the incoming data. This ranges from the basics of the Operating Software (e.g. Linux) to GNU compilers (e.g. Python, C++…), math and data libraries (e.g. MATLAB, NetCDF4) to visualisation software like the Grid Analysis Display System (GrADS).

Figure 2. Visualisation of global model topography using GrADS over Nepal domain

Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP)
NWP utilises the power of supercomputing in order to calculate the equations that define the flow of fluids in the atmosphere (and ocean too!). The supercomputer implements the method of NWP by translating the governing equations of dynamical meteorology, numerical methods, parameterized physical processes, and initial and boundary conditions into computer code which is then analysed and determined over a specific geographic domain (e.g. Nepal in Figure 2.).

Figure 3. depicts a simple flow chart of the essentials a modelling system (e.g. Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model) would potentially progress through – NOTE: Figure 3. is one example data route of a much larger flow chart. 

Firstly, data is collected from an external source – this may be observational data collected by a weather bureau (via satellite, radiosondes, weather stations, radar etc.) or this could be model data. This data is then put through pre-processing such as data assimilation. Data assimilation is a processing technique to estimate the optimal state of the evolving weather system by combining observational and numerical model data. Next, the data is run through the model calculations and lastly the data is post-processed and visualised by software such as GrADS.

Figure 3. Data flow through numerical modelling method

Furthermore, methods of NWP such as ensemble forecasting is used to improve current modelling techniques by producing a more reliable and accurate forecast. This can be done by comparing various different NWP forecasts and combining multiple model runs through statistical and graphical methods to reduce the level of uncertainty of the model outcomes and increase confidence in the accuracy of the final output.

Figure 4. Ensemble modelling example**

Project History
ESS has been involved in several international HPC and NWP projects. ESS has extensive expertise working with these software solutions and similar packages, having installed similar modelling systems in Australia, the USA, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

ESS has recently installed a Weather Research and Forecast system in Pakistan for the National Meteorological Service (PMD) as part of a project funded by the Government of Japan. ESS staff currently run the WRF model at the University of New South Wales Mathematics Department providing forecast guidance for a client base. A brief description of some of these projects follows: 

Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (DHM), Nepal – HPC and NWP Project 
ESS experts are currently delivering an NWP and HPC system for the Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, Nepal. This procurement is part of the investments of the Building Resilience to Climate Related Hazards (BRCH) project scheduled for the period 2013-2018. The BRCH project is one of the four projects funded through the Nepal Pilot program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) under the Strategic Climate Fund by the World Bank. 

This procurement focuses on the high-performance computing system needed specifically to operate a mesoscale high-resolution atmospheric NWP model. Currently the Weather Research and Forecast model suitable for providing localized weather and Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts is installed at DHM for test use. 

Figure 5. Low Resolution 27/09 km WRFDA test domain for WRFDA over Nepal for Dept. Hydrology and Meteorology

Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) Project
In 2019, ESS completed a three-year project tasked to design, build and deliver a turnkey for High-Performance Computing, including a Forecast Guidance System based on Numerical Weather Prediction data for the Specialized Medium Range Weather Forecasting Center (SMRFC) of the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD). This project was funded by the Government of Japan, and the focus is to enable the PMD for a more accurate and timely forecasting of severe weather including heavy rainfall and flooding. The accompanying Forecast Guidance System is based on the Objective Consensus Forecast (OCF) system which is tuned for Pakistan. It uses direct model output of standard meteorological parameters such as temperature, humidity, wind and rainfall from a suite of up to six global and regional models, weighs these according to model performance over Pakistan and produces consensus forecasts out to seven days for 100 towns and cities.

Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) - NWP Project
ESS experts installed and commissioned an HPC supercomputer cluster running the Japan Meteorological Agency regional numerical model over a Bangladesh domain. This project was funded by the Government of Japan, and ESS was a sub-contractor for provision of its experts to undertake the Numerical Weather Prediction scope of the work, which comprises of the following:

o Provision of Operation Software of the HPC Cluster for Numerical Weather Prediction Model (JMA Non-Hydrostatic Model)
o Installation and Adjustment of Operation Software for Numerical Weather Prediction Model
o Contents of Numerical Weather Prediction Model (JMA Non-Hydrostatic Model)

Summary
High Performance Computing has the capacity to provide short term weather forecast by establishing an operational high-resolution local area Numerical Weather Prediction system to provide improved guidance for weather forecasting and to help assessment of rapidly developing severe weather situations.

Outcomes of an operational HPC system include a platform to provide NWP leading to output such as quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPF) for flood forecasting and there-by increase lead time for flood warnings, improve alert services including severe weather and heavy monsoonal rain events, thunderstorms, and flood risks.

These abilities of an HPC are very beneficial to weather services and governmental weather bureaus around the globe. HPC and NWP are continually developing and improving globally to provide services to the public and private sector. Watch this space!

For more information on HPC and NWP from our experts, please contact us via LinkedIn or our website essweather.com

References: *https://www.weather.gov/about/supercomputers#:~:text=NWS%20super%20computers%20hold%20numerical,buoys%2C%20radar%2C%20and%20more.&text=The%20NWS%20has%20been%20using%20supercomputers%20for%20decades
** https://www.weather.gov/media/ajk/brochures/NumericalWeatherPrediction.pdf