Often, weather determines whether the Army will conduct outdoor tests on various systems. HPCMP's powerful abilities take the guess work out of forecasting and maximize time on the range.
The US Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC) has used the Four-Dimensional Weather System (4DWX) for over 20 years to provide diagnostics and forecasts in real-time. Based on numeric weather prediction models, 4DWX has advanced warning capabilities for events like lightning and high winds that allow program managers to maximize test time prior to arrival. 4DWX runs continuously with cycles of 1- to 120-hour forecasts launched every three or six hours, depending on a test center’s needs.
In 2017, ATEC started running 4DWX at HPCMP’s Army Research Laboratory DoD Supercomputing Resource Center (DSRC) and Navy DSRC. By switching from their previous cluster computing system, ATEC was able to use DoD resources more effectively and take advantage of the dedicated hardware and software support HPCMP provides. The HPCs use local and national observations, including water surface temperatures, to create the forecast. For each hour, they generate and transfer the data files via remote synchronization to the ATEC test locations. The Defense Research and Engineering Network, another HPCMP resource, is critical to this process.