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In the month that it celebrates its 150 year anniversary, the Met Office in the UK is reporting one of the largest improvements in its computer-produced forecasts ever seen. Results confirm that the Met Office is set to strengthen its position as a world leader in weather forecasting and climate research. It has ditched its two old Crays, and bought itself a brand new NEC SX-6 supercomputer. This has increased the computing power at its disposal six times, and should reduce the number of "busts" - instances when forecasts go badly wrong. The NEC SX-6 computers are now fully operational and the results have exceeded the scientists' expectations. Met Office Chief Scientist John Mitchell commented, "We were expecting good results, but the magnitude of the improvements has been a pleasant surprise. The investment in improved technology has been made at the same time as our relocation and it's great to see the benefits being realised." Forecasters will be able to give better advice on all aspects of the weather enabling governments, business and the public to plan ahead and use the weather to their benefit. The main changes are: * A massive increase in the number of satellite observations going into the model * Processing and incorporating data far more quickly than was previously possible, which greatly improves the quality of the initial analysis of the atmosphere * Making more detailed use of information from observations about how the atmosphere has changed with time. This system is called 4-dimensional variational data assimilation (or 4DVAR). Scientists looking at global warming will also gain from the investment as climate research uses the NECs for modelling future climatic patterns. The power of the Met Office computing facility is set to be doubled again in 2005 as further hardware is brought on-line.