Weathering The Olympics

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By Robin Nelson
Issue date: July 1, 1996

The National Weather Service says there's a 40% chance that Atlanta will be hotter than normal during this summer's Olympics. Typically, summer afternoon highs often approach 100 degrees with high humidity. Midsummer days also feature thunderclouds and storms that present a real concern for technicians installing the electronic components of the Olympic technology infrastructure.

To protect against a sudden loss of power, Exide Electronics is supplying more than 12,000 power protection units. By mi d-June, Georgia weather was running true to form, and Exide Electronics' power protection units kept the results network and PBXs up for several minutes after a lightning strike at the Olympic Stadium one afternoon. The units also sustained the token-ring backbone at the Yachting Center in Savannah when a storm hit just after installation. "We've had to do a lot more work," says consultant Jim Albers, who advises AT&T spin-off Lucent Technologies on cabling installations. "All the cables had to be terminated with solid-state devices."

Because the Olympics Committee forbids certain events, such as canoeing, from taking place during an electrical storm, the Games may depend in large measure on a new computer forecasting system. It's called the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). First researched at Colorado State University, RAMS uses a smaller, more concentrated data model than typical National Weather Service forecasting. It produces accurate and extremely granular--as fine as 2-by-2 kilomete rs--forecasts for the next six to 24 hours.

RAMS--a joint project among IBM, the National Weather Service, and the Forecast Systems Lab of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--works this way: First, a 30-node IBM RS/6000 SP system will crunch large amounts of atmospheric data to produce the model, which is then refined with input from local measuring stations. Next, IBM software converts the data into two- and three-dimensional, high-resolution images and charts that help meteorologists precisely forecast local weather. "They'll be able to say that at four o'clock this afternoon, give or take five to 10 minutes, you're going to have one heck of a thunderstorm," says Karen MacPherson, a member of the IBM team.

IBM sees a broad potential for commercial applications ranging from air traffic control to leisure industries and, of course, agriculture. It's no coincidence, then, that one of the first SP-based systems is already on order by the government of the world's largest agricultural na tion, China.

See next story in our special report: " A Ring Of Security "

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