Today’s a big day for the engineers at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center in Cheyenne, Wyoming, who have just begun powering up the world’s newest kick-ass supercomputer for the first time.

Known as the ‘Yellowstone’, the new 1.5 petaflop, IBM-made supercomputer has been designed to tackle a hugely ambitious agenda of experiments and calculations that could help scientists improve their understanding of some of the most destructive natural forces in the world – tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes.

Yellowstone isn’t the most powerful supercomputer in the world – that honor still belongs to Sequoia at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, but it is the biggest one ever built to help tackle the problems posed by climate change. And it would seem to have plenty of muscle power to perform that task, packing a massive central file and data storage system, together with a high performance computational cluster and a cutting edge data visualization system.

Thomas Bogdan, President of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the body which manages NCR, explained his hopes for Yellowstone in a press release:

“This center will help transform our understanding of the natural world in ways that offer enormous benefits to society.”

“Whether it’s better understanding tornadoes and hurricanes, or deciphering the forces that lead to geomagnetic storms, the Yellowstone supercomputer and the NWSC will lead to improved forecasts and better protection for the public and our economy.”

The facility housing Yellowstone includes 24,000 sq. ft of raised floor data space, plus a 10 foot raised floor and a 9 foot ceiling plenum, simply to manage the airflow necessary to keep the Supercomputer cool.

Meanwhile, the design of Yellowstone ensures that it is “future-proof”, meaning that its flexible enough to be expanded and adapted to incorporate new supercomputing technologies if and when they evolve.

Covering a massive 153,000 sq. ft at Cheyenne’s North Range Business Park, Yellowstone’s advanced computing services will be made available to scientists from universities and institutions across the USA. The majority of researchers will be able to access Yellowstone remotely, via the internet.

Yellowstone is also environmentally friendly, with a minimum 10% of its power needs being supplied by a local wind farm, while the NCAR says that it’s exploring options to increase its dependency on renewable energy sources.

NCAR partnered with the National Science Foundation (NSF), the State of Wyoming, the University of Wyoming, the Wyoming Business Council, Cheyenne LEADS and Cheyenne Light, Fuel and Power to make the project happen.

Subra Suresh, director of the NSF, added:

“The NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center will offer researchers the opportunity to develop, access, and share complex models and data at incredibly powerful speeds. This is the latest example of NSF’s unique ability to identify challenges early and make sure that the best tools are in place to support the science and engineering research communities.”