US Army Corps of Engineers Uses Azure for Storm Modeling

(Photo: Brian McGowan/Unsplash) The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority are teaming up with Microsoft to better prepare the state for hurricanes. The agencies are using Azure Government, a Microsoft computing and analytics tool reserved specifically for the government, to model synthetic storms and determine the best ways to prevent the need for future evacuation and reconstruction.

After the U.S. Army Corps Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) kicked off the pilot project under the Department of Defense’s High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP), Microsoft awarded the ERDC with an AI for Earth grant, which aims to “put Microsoft Cloud and AI tools in the hands of those working to solve global environmental challenges.” The Louisiana authority and the Army Corps will run CSTORM-MS, a high-capacity storm modeling system, on Azure to explore the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in garnering storm insights. They’ll start by studying how seawater could surge up the Mississippi River during a major storm and affect coastal communities. 

The Mississippi River, a major economic driver for Louisiana, is also a flood risk during hurricanes and other major storms. (Photo: Justin Wilkens/Unsplash)

Following such catastrophic disasters as Hurricanes Ida and Katrina (as well as the growing urgency of climate change), it’s imperative that the government find ways to mitigate the effects of tropical storms. Using Azure, the Army Corps can decide which flood-risk infrastructure to prioritize, as well as where to place it. Seawalls and levees are critical to temper hurricanes’ impact on nearby communities, but precisely where they’re constructed makes a world of difference. Putting a levee in one spot can lead to flooding in another, for instance, and room for error is slim. “If you’re building a levee that goes 10, 20 miles or so and you’ve got to have an error tolerance on how high that levee is, you’re talking millions of dollars if you’ve got to build it higher,” ERDC research mathematician Chris Massey told Microsoft.

The agencies have already mimicked over 2,300 computerized storms prior to bringing Azure Government onboard. Resources have historically been scarce; CSTORM’s heavy lifting requires the team to use Department of Defense supercomputers, which are in high demand by researchers involved in COVID-19 mapping and military analyses. Azure will allow the ERDC to circumvent potential delays caused by this demand and be able to respond efficiently during an active storm.

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