So every time I go on business trips to Omaha, I go to the Weather Museum and see this cool old supercomputer that Air Force Weather used to crunch numbers. Acquired in 1983 or 1984 with a formal ribbon cutting ceremony in March of 1985 they used it for the Advanced Weather Analysis and Prediction System (AWAPS). They also used it for the Global Spectral Model (GSM) to produce a 96 hour forecast, and for the High-Resolution Analysis System (HIRAS). It was a pretty big deal back in the day as evidenced by a formal ribbon cutting ceremony. I don’t know exactly what the Air Force paid for it but in 1984 Cray X-MPs went for a cool $15M according to an article I read. Air Force Weather used the cray for about 10 years according the the Air Weather Association’s web site. On my fist visit to Air Force Global Weather Central (AFGWC) in late 1997, I got to see the Cray in the weather museum.
Today when I was there, I got to wondering how this multi-million dollar relic stacks up to my Raspberry Pi computers that I have at the house. Of course I hit up Google and hit an article at 2000nickels.com titled “A Cray for $35“. Indeed, my oldest Raspberry Pi is faster than the Cray. I’m sure Air Force Weather kept a staff of system administrators and programmers to keep the Cray operating. I use a Raspberry Pi as a Secure Shell (SSH) server to allow me to log on to my home network no matter where I am in the world… I’m sure it’s capable of so much more! Maybe I could use it to crunch weather models!
I took these pictures today at the Weather Museum set up at the 557th Weather Wing on Offutt AFB.
