With GRAF, The Weather Company pushes envelope of science in forecasting

The Weather Company, an IBM Business, proposes to use the latest IBM Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting System (GRAF) to serve the needs of 'an under-served population' across the globe.

GRAF is touted to be the first hourly-updating weather system that is able to predict something as small as a thunderstorm virtually anywhere on the planet.

Compared to existing models, it seeks to provide a nearly 200 per cent improvement in forecasting resolution for much of the globe (from 12 sq km resolution to 3 sq km) and is slated to be launched later this year.

‘Huge step forward'

GRAF represents a huge step forward, says Kevin Petty, Director, Science, Forecast Operations and Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), The Weather Company, in an exclusive interview to BusinessLine.

"We’re leveraging models that are in some cases developed by national met agencies. We use technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) to extract additional information to make high-quality forecasts," he said.

"But we also internally run our ow prediction models, the latest one being GRAF. What we intend to do here is push the envelop of science in forecasting."

Over the years, weather modelling has become more global. Take the case of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, US National Weather Service, the UK Met Office, or the Japanese Met Agency.

"They are running these global models. However, typically – and this is where the real key comes in - these models are run at a scale of 10 sq km or 15 sq km and are updating four times a day at best."

Going beyond, The Weather Company is looking to run global models at 3 sq km over the globe with high population concentrations and bring out the best forecasts updated every hour.

Capturing thunderstorms

"We feel strongly that GRAF will help us better define and capture thunderstorms. There’s not doubt about that. But is it the perfect model available? May be not.If we had a perfect forecast model, I wouldn’t be sitting here; I’d probably be retired," Petty said in a lighter vein.

“All we do is to strive to perfect those forecasts and continue to push those boundaries," Petty added.

When it comes to pushing the envelope, Petty said that it needs to done in three key areas. These are Observations, computing power, and modelling. He said that The Weather Company is working on each one of those areas.

"If one were to take a step and back in order to predict the future and do it accurately, one must know what is happening right now. This is where these unique observations sourced from millions of sensors worldwide and in-flight data mean a lot to us. We leverage data simulations based on them and stream into models to assess current conditions. Then comes the computing power. With its GPU (graphical processing units) that accelerates workloads for faster performance, there is more power at hand to run these models with high-resolution globally," he explains.

"And that is fundamental to our scheme of things. We are investing into these observations, we’re investing into computing power, and we’re investing into modelling. That’s how we’re going to achieve success," Petty added.

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