American hardware company International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) announced on Thursday that it is launching a global weather forecasting model today. The so-called Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting (GRAF) will offer detailed weather forecast in high resolution for areas only two miles wide in the areas of the world that previously weren’t covered with such accurate forecasts.
The new supercomputer dubbed DYEUS, which will run GRAF, will be able to show 12 trillion pieces of weather-related data every day and forecast the weather every hour.
Kevin Petty, head of science and forecasting at The Weather Company that was bought by IBM three years ago said: "We're actually getting down to the cellular level of the thunderstorms now, where we weren't able to do that before. And with that information, we can provide better support to critical decision makers." The application should be extremely useful for air carriers as well, as they will be able to operate flights as planned and therefore save money on fuel, Steve Abelman, the weather technology manager at IBM weather services' client American Airlines, stated.
