The Mirror and Express made rare common cause yesterday with puffs predicting a Hallowe'en heatwave.
A couple of days of warm weather and we can't help but start comparing ourselves with Benidorm or Benin. At this time of the year, it also means the arboretums are full of photographers competing for the half-page slots that will doubtless be devoted to trees with light streaming through golden foliage.
A couple of days of warm weather and we can't help but start comparing ourselves with Benidorm or Benin. At this time of the year, it also means the arboretums are full of photographers competing for the half-page slots that will doubtless be devoted to trees with light streaming through golden foliage.
Sure enough, here's the Express's effort on page 11: a couple of children climbing a tree at Westonbirt, sunrise over Tower Bridge and a 14-par weather forecast.
But what's that little single squeezed between the ads?
A new £97m Met Office computer will be able to do 16,000 trillion calculations a second and give better warning of extreme weather. This will, the Express says, give a £2bn boost to the economy.
Here we have a development that is likely to influence the paper's newslist for years to come and it is written off in three pars.
And three not very meaningful pars. What does that number of calculations mean? It certainly sounds a lot, but how does it compare with other computers? What sort of calculations? Is it that special or so last century?
How will the economy benefit to the tune of £2bn - and will that be an annual boost or a one-off?
But what's that little single squeezed between the ads?
A new £97m Met Office computer will be able to do 16,000 trillion calculations a second and give better warning of extreme weather. This will, the Express says, give a £2bn boost to the economy.
Here we have a development that is likely to influence the paper's newslist for years to come and it is written off in three pars.
And three not very meaningful pars. What does that number of calculations mean? It certainly sounds a lot, but how does it compare with other computers? What sort of calculations? Is it that special or so last century?
How will the economy benefit to the tune of £2bn - and will that be an annual boost or a one-off?
The Telegraph was more enthusiastic about the story - to the extent of making it the splash - and so came up with a little more detail. The new computer would be able to carve the country into 300-metre chunks so that local variations in the weather could be predicted more accurately, a great help when councils need to know which roads to grit or where snow ploughs are going to be needed.
The Met Office should also be able to predict the weather for the next 24 hours with 90% accuracy. Apparently at the moment it can do so only for the coming 12 hours and to be honest, most of us can do that by looking out of the window.
The Telegraph also tells us about those 16,000 trillion calculations, which seem to suggest that our supercomputer - which has mysteriously not been given an affectionate name yet - it is going to do a lot of pondering, cross-checking and going through the files, since it is to be fed a mere 106 million observations a day.
The Telegraph also contributes to our collection of pointless comparisons by noting that the computer would weigh as much as 11 double-decker buses. Aren't double-decker buses supposed to be used for height comparison? Have you ever lifted one? No, neither have I. The only person in the country who might have half an idea of what this means is Geoff Capes. So where is he when you need him? Apparently breeding budgies in Lincolnshire.
The Times was also enthused by the October warmth as a source of pretty pictures and it cross-reffed from its Westonbirt picture on 19 to "Met Office supercomputer, page 57".
Here, on the weather map page, we have a little gem from Paul Simons. He gets the 16 trillion calculations fact into the first sentence and makes it a little more relevant in the next, saying that this is 13 times as many as the existing computer, making it one of the most powerful in the world.
I'd still like to know who's at the top of the league. Nasa? Apple? Something in China?
But then comes the hidden treasure: the Met Office got its taste for computer forecasting from the old Lyons Corner House business:
The Met Office should also be able to predict the weather for the next 24 hours with 90% accuracy. Apparently at the moment it can do so only for the coming 12 hours and to be honest, most of us can do that by looking out of the window.
The Telegraph also tells us about those 16,000 trillion calculations, which seem to suggest that our supercomputer - which has mysteriously not been given an affectionate name yet - it is going to do a lot of pondering, cross-checking and going through the files, since it is to be fed a mere 106 million observations a day.
The Telegraph also contributes to our collection of pointless comparisons by noting that the computer would weigh as much as 11 double-decker buses. Aren't double-decker buses supposed to be used for height comparison? Have you ever lifted one? No, neither have I. The only person in the country who might have half an idea of what this means is Geoff Capes. So where is he when you need him? Apparently breeding budgies in Lincolnshire.
The Times was also enthused by the October warmth as a source of pretty pictures and it cross-reffed from its Westonbirt picture on 19 to "Met Office supercomputer, page 57".
Here, on the weather map page, we have a little gem from Paul Simons. He gets the 16 trillion calculations fact into the first sentence and makes it a little more relevant in the next, saying that this is 13 times as many as the existing computer, making it one of the most powerful in the world.
I'd still like to know who's at the top of the league. Nasa? Apple? Something in China?
But then comes the hidden treasure: the Met Office got its taste for computer forecasting from the old Lyons Corner House business:
After the war Lyons wanted to improve its operation and looked at the electronic computers being used by the military in the US. They were so impressed that in 1951 they made their own computer in the UK called Leo I, standing for the Lyons Electronic Office I. This was the world’s first business computer, and one of its early tasks was to collate daily orders phoned in each day from the teashops and calculate the overnight orders and delivery schedules. Lyons even factored in weather forecasts for the fresh produce carried by its delivery vans.
The Met Office showed an interest and Lyons let its forecasters use Leo. They liked it so much that in 1959 they bought their own, which was named Meteor.
Given our new knowledge about how many trillions of calculations a computer should be expected to do today, we obviously want to know Meteor measured up. According to Simons it could do 30,000 a second.
Five lovely pars and fair play to Simons for keeping this material for his Weather Eye column - but did this story really belong tucked away on page 57?
Given our new knowledge about how many trillions of calculations a computer should be expected to do today, we obviously want to know Meteor measured up. According to Simons it could do 30,000 a second.
Five lovely pars and fair play to Simons for keeping this material for his Weather Eye column - but did this story really belong tucked away on page 57?
The Guardian thought not, and gave the story the best show, combining its pretty autumn pictures (including the obligatory snap from Westonbirt) with a page lead that turned the 11 double-deckers into 14 tonnes. There's a nice little panel labelled "Cloud computing" that charts the history of Met Office computers, although it doesn't mention the Lyons Corner House connection. The Guardian also came up with the cutest heading, but it still didn't tell us its name. For that we had to turn to the Independent.
And the answer is....
Cray@XC40.
I think that needs some work.
And the answer is....
Cray@XC40.
I think that needs some work.
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