#CES2019 – Weather apps are pretty common and for the most part do a good job at predicting the weather. However sometimes these predictions don’t necessarily come true, although we suppose it’s not a bad thing since it’s better to be safe and bring an umbrella rather than take the risk and end up getting soaked.However IBM thinks that it could do better in terms of forecasts and it wants to leverage our phones to do so. The company has recently announced plans for the IBM Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting System. This is a new commercial weather system that will be updated every hour that according to IBM, will provide a 200% improvement in forecasts.
This is thanks to the use of IBM’s POWER9-based supercomputers as well as crowdsourced data from the millions of sensors around the world, such as those found in our smartphones. Of course users will have the option to decide whether or not they want to contribute (much like how Waze’s traffic reporting feature works), such as sharing pressure sensor readings from barometers in their phones and so on.
According to Cameron Clayton, general manager of Watson Media and Weather for IBM, “Weather influences what people do day-to-day and is arguably the most important external swing factor in business performance. As extreme weather becomes more common, our new weather system will ensure every person and organization around the world has access to more accurate, more finely-tuned weather forecasts.”