Numerical Weather Prediction in Thailand

1. Introduction

Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) in Thailand is in the implementation stage. The plan to introduce NWP for short-range weather forecast initiated in December 1992 when the government required the Thai Meteorological Department (TMD) to improve the accuracy of the daily weather forecast. The forecast methods used by TMD are mainly subjective; supplement by NWP products from European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), and United Kingdom Meteorological Office (UKMO). In order to be able to implement NWP as soon as possible, TMD announced a bidding for a semi- turnkey NWP system and associated infrastructure for short-range weather forecast. The time spent for drafting of the request for proposal was over two years, involving many trips to several meteorological centers and computer manufacturers around the world. Three months after the request for proposal had been announced, nine proposals had been submitted to TMD for evaluation in May 1995. After long evaluation processes, the Evaluation Committee came up with a winner for this bidding in November 1995. However, there were complaints from some bidders for re-evaluation of the proposals as they believed that the selected proposal was not qualified. With these complaints, there were several investigations by many organizations of the Thai Government including some committees of the House of Representative. Nevertheless, all investigations revealed no wrong-doing and the selected bidder had been confirmed as the winner. Finally, the contract between TMD and the selected bidder has been signed in July 1996. The implementation of the NWP Project will take 28 months. The operation should be able to begin in early 1999.

2. The NWP Computer Configuration

1. The supercomputer class IBM ISC/6000 SP with :
   six wide nodes (POWER2 SC 135 MHz)
   thirty-two thin nodes (POWER2 SC 120 MHz)
   each node has 128 MB of memory and 2.2 GB storage
   two RS/6000 model 959 as high availability Control Workstation
2. Primary Mass Storage:
   IBM 7133 SSA model 020 Disk Subsystem with 582 GB (291 mirror configuration)
3. Robotics Tape:
   Magstar 3494 Tape Library model L12 with two 3590 tape drives and S10 storage unit with more than 10 TB of storage capacity
4. IBM 3995 Optical Library with 135 GB
5. IBM 9348 Open Reel Tape, 2 units
6. PRINTONIX P5212 Line Printer, 2 units
7. PRINTONIX L5301 Page Printer, 2 units
8. HP Design Jet A0 Plotter, 2 units
9. IBM model 43P-140 Workstation, Power PC604e 233 MHz with 128 MB memory and 9 GB disk, 10 units
10. IBM model 43P-140 Workstation, Power PC604e 233 MHz with 64 MB memory and 4.5 GB disk, 20 units
11. IBM PC 300 GL Pentium 166 MHz, 70 units
12. Laser and inkjet printers, scanners, digitizers, CD writers, etc.
13. FDDI Switched Communication Networks / 10 baseT Ethernet

3. Software

1. Limited Area NWP for SE-Asia:
   Modified version of the ``Unified Model'' from UKMO (with ~50 km resolution)
2. Limited Area NWP for Thailand:
   Modified version of the ``Unified Model'' from UKMO (with ~25 km resolution)
3. Meteorological Message Switch:
   ``WeatherMan'' from NETSYS International Ltd.
4. Graphics Display:
   ``Horace'' from UKMO for workstation display
   ``MIST'' from UKMO for PC display

4. Future Plan

The next step for NWP in Thailand will be application/utilization of NWP for specialized forecasts such as marine forecast, environmental forecast, etc. As Thailand is new in the field of NWP and there is no university that offers a degree in meteorology, joint research and development activities with other national meteorological centers are required.