There are at least 5 or 7 models used to predict the next few days' weather.
A new one was implemented a few years ago and a lot of comparison, especially against the European Model, often being held out as being more accurate in some parameters.
I'm curious about these programs.
a) Where did they come from? Is it entirely the charge of the NWS to run them? Many universities have a great deal of talent in studying the weather, gathering data and so on. Is there any involvement fromthem?
b) How are these programs maintained? Is there a team of scientists and programmers who constantly tweak them, or is it like upgrading Windows years ago when a new release comes along to be loaded and run?
c) I come from an area where CRAY machines were designed and built, and in addition to being shipped to and installed in Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore type labs, it was always a point of pride that those machines, and I'm sure some of the other parallel processers of massive size, were used in weather forecasting. Where are the data centers, even in this day of cloud computing? Are there two or three clusters in Oklahoma City or such?
d) Do all the various models get run by NWS and then those data are released for study and use by the TV stations, etc? Or does only the officially accepted one get run by NWS and all the rest are run by universities to be released on a regular basis?
e) What language are the models written in? Just kidding, making sure someone is awake.
Obviously a subject that there isn't a lot of information about that I've found to the detail I'd like, and I don't know professional meteorologists, so I'm hoping at least some end-of-the-bar type stories can be told.
And happy new year to all. Dale