Frequently Asked Questions
- How much does it cost?
- The main costs include hosting a web domain, compute cluster time, and data egress. A web domain typically costs $12/year. The forecasts are run on AWS’s hpc6a clusters, that cost $3.00/hour. The total cost of running a forecast depends on the forecast details. For example, a domain with 700x500 grid points and 6km resolution, with a basic tropical physics suite, 24-hour forecast with hourly output, using 96 cores, costs about $7.00. The data egress costs $0.09/GB and the total cost depends on the interaction with the forecast viewer. For example, to view every variable available right now, for a 24-hour forecast with hourly output, it’s about 700MB, which translates to about $0.06. To give an idea of compute costs for various forecasts, some examples are listed below.
| Res |
Grid Size |
Fcst Len |
Out Freq |
Wall Clock |
Cores |
Cost |
| 6km |
700x500 |
24 hr |
1 hr |
2.17 hr |
96 |
$6.91 |
| 3km |
500x520 |
24 hr |
1 hr |
1.62 hr |
96 |
$5.11 |
| 1km |
250x250 |
24 hr |
1 hr |
1.53 hr |
48 |
$4.71 |
- What Cloud Service Providers does this work on? Only Amazon Web Services?
- Currently the system only works on AWS. Interested in porting it to another CSP? We are too! Let’s talk, send us an email.
- Are you a forecasting service?
- Nope! We do not provide the forecasts, we provide you the tool (read: a whole bunch of code) to install on your AWS account allowing you to run and manage your own forecasts from a simple website that only you have access to.
- What model is used?
- The system is currently designed to use the WRF model.
- What input data is used?
- Initial conditions are provided by the Global Forecasting System (GFS) at 3-hourly time intervals. Future enhancements may allow for 1-hourly interval data to be used.
- Can you download the model data?
- At this time, the model data is not saved. Only the forecast plots viewable on the Forecast Viewer are saved. But, we expect to include the option to save model output in a future release version.
- You may find more information in our documentation. Head over to the Get Started page.