It was a significant milestone for Fiji Meteorological Service to set up a High Performance Computing (HPC) in Fiji.

Fiji MET was able to achieve this through its partnership with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), Agency for Meteorology Climatology and Geophysics of the Republic of Indonesia (BMKG) and also the Lenovo and VirtualFlex.

The solution was designed by the Chief Technology Officers of Lenovo, VirtualFlex, Joao Almeida and Navin Lal, and implemented by Group Manager Projects and Innovation, Ravishay Prasad, while the software component is being deployed by BKMG Indonesia.

According to the Fiji MET, the HPC in Fiji would enable them to compute numerical weather prediction data locally and distribute it to the public and other small Pacific Island countries.

It would also enable them to have high resolution data which in turn helps improve the consistency of our forecasts.

In developing a weather early warning system as a risk reduction for hydrometeorological disasters, weather modelling capabilities are needed to obtain information as early as possible from the threat of extreme weather.”

The Fiji MET acknowledged that with today’s technology, that weather modelling could be developed to produce a model with high resolution.

Fiji would be at the forefront of implementing high-performance computing in the Pacific region by providing a model with better accuracy to help the neighbouring countries.

In the future, Fiji could become a centre for weather modelling and provide information for the needs of extreme weather impacts such as floods, flash floods, and landslides.

High-resolution models could help detect high-impact weather, especially in small island countries’ weather systems.

The Fiji MET would work closely with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the Agency for Meteorology Climatology and Geophysics of the Republic of Indonesia (BMKG) in a programme to create high-resolution models and increase human resources capacity