1.6 terabytes of data per day to forecast the weather. That’s what the Korea Metrological Administration (KMA) is up against every day.

So to allow for real-time analysis to improve forecasting accuracy, the KMA has invested heavily in big data capacity.

The KMA will use technologies capable of recording 20 gigabytes of data per second, and will have data storage capacity of 9.3 petabytes (1 petabyte = 1048576 gigabytes), making it Korea’s most powerful data storage system.

By using big data more efficiently, the KMA hopes to better track extreme weather conditions such as typhoon trajectories, and monitor more closely environmental issues such as the yellow dust sandstorms that blow into Korea from China and Mongolia during the spring.