Jane Edwards
IBM and its subsidiary The Weather Co. plan to launch this year a weather forecasting model that could have potential applications in the federal government, the Washington Business Journal reported Monday.
The Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting system is designed to generate short-term weather predictions worldwide by analyzing data from smartphones, aircraft-based sensors and other data sources using POWER9 processors.
The report cited potential benefits of the GRAF system to the departments of Defense and Homeland Security.
The Weather Co. teamed up with the National Center for Atmospheric Research to work on some parts of the GRAF platform using funds from the National Science Foundation.
“A federal investment has generated economic opportunities and it’s just been a good scientific collaboration,” Mary Glackin, vice president of weather business solutions at The Weather Co., told WBJ.
“As we worked to do some of these things neither organization was really prepared to do it on it’s own but together we’ve been able to move forward.”
