Weather companies want to do their best so that consumers and businesses can have reliable forecasts – not just for the day but in advance of it. Accuracy matters to weather services such as the Weather Channel and AccuWeather and predictive analytics, along with Data Science, is allowing them to get more precise weather reports than ever before. We all like to discuss what is going on outside, and we want to know if enough snow is expected for good skiing on an upcoming vacation, whether it will be pouring on a special occasion, or if the expectation of heavy storms with high winds requires a business to activate disaster recovery plans. In fact, a multi-year study of forecast accuracy – Analysis of One- to Five-Day-Out Global Temperature, Probability of Precipitation and Wind Speed Forecasts – found that AccuWeather was the most accurate provider for wind and precipitation forecasts and was a co-leader in accuracy for temperature forecasts. For temperature forecasts, AccuWeather was the most accurate for high temperature forecasts, while The Weather Channel was the most accurate for low temperature forecasts.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and its subsidiary The Weather Company, which includes The Weather Channel digital properties, were determined to be "the overall most accurate provider globally" by ForecastWatch, a premier organization for evaluating the accuracy of weather forecasts. In its latest comprehensive study of forecast accuracy released today,ii Global and Regional Weather Forecast Accuracy Overview, 2017-2020, commissioned by IBM, ForecastWatch named IBM's The Weather Company as the weather forecast provider whose forecasts overall were the most accurate globally when aggregated across all geographic regions compared and time periods covered. Further, the data showed that the gap between The Weather Company (noted as The Weather Channel in the report) and the next best overall provider has increased every year of the study.iii "A forecast is most helpful when it comes from a recognized, trusted source, and the pursuit of accuracy is at the foundation of what we seek to provide to help customers, consumers and marketers to make important decisions every day," said Sheri Bachstein, CEO of The Weather Company and GM of IBM Watson Advertising. "The study is evidence of how IBM is helping advance the science of weather forecasting through continued innovations in AI, data and cloud computing."

Traditional models of weather forecasting are based on statistical measures based on data collected from deep space satellites, such as NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory, weather balloons, radar systems, and sometimes from IoT-based sensors. Today, AI is finding a role in weather forecasting with machine learning being employed to process more complex data in less time, with the hope of improving accuracy. For example, the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) site from NOAA offers a range of data sets for use by researchers, from temperature and precipitation data to wave heights, according to a recent account in Analytics Insight. The site offers vast data sets relayed from weather satellites, relay stations, and radiosondes to help deliver short-term weather forecasts or long-term climate predictions. Besides machine learning, other AI techniques for weather predictions include Artificial Neural Networks, Ensemble Neural Networks, Backpropagation Networks, Radial Basis Function Networks, General Regression Neural Networks, Genetic Algorithms, Multilayer Perceptrons and fuzzy clustering.

When it recently launched a new weather model called IBM GRAF, The Weather Company took a big supercomputing step forward. IBM GRAF, with its ability to process weather data from a variety of sources worldwide, enables The Weather Company, an IBM Business, to deliver high-resolution, hourly-updated forecasts around the globe--particularly to regions that have never had them before. But the full power of IBM GRAF to generate local forecasts for the entire world depends on technology that The Weather Company already had in place and is continually refining: artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing. When a series of winter storms recently lashed much of the United States, millions of people used The Weather Channel mobile app and weather.com Sophisticated AI algorithms from The Weather Company turn troves of current and historic weather data into recommendations, for example, that can tell an electric utility company where to trim trees to prevent blackouts before the next storm hits.

Each year, natural catastrophes result in severe economic costs and impact the lives of millions globally. While the forces of nature cannot be controlled, accurate and reliable weather forecasts will enable governments and administrations to take appropriate measures and contain the magnitude of the resultant damage. Likewise, precise weather predictions would benefit businesses by allowing them to take more appropriate decisions by factoring in weather related impacts. Over the years, weather predictions have greatly improved, however, there is still room for growth. Here's a look at how advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) are being leveraged to transform weather forecasting.

Our mission at The Weather Company is to help people make informed decisions in the face of weather, and there is no better time to connect with consumers than during flu season. Today, The Weather Company introduces Flu Insights with Watson in partnership with CVS, a new feature within The Weather Channel app for iOS and Android that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to arm consumers across the country with critical information to help them prepare for flu season. For the first time, Flu Insights with Watson includes a notification that is triggered during key moments like the onset of flu season, confirmed cases of flu outbreak or increased risk conditions. Users then have access to an industry-first 15-day flu forecast that displays the risk ranging from low to high, according to ZIP code. The experience also includes illness prevention tips and the latest flu reports from the CDC to provide users with actionable insights.

The Weather Company, an IBM Business, sets great by store by Artificial Intelligence (AI) which can be a game-changer in tracking/forecasting weather events in the context of climate change/global warming. It's being governed by the same factors today and tomorrow," explains Kevin Petty, Director, Science and Forecast Operations at The Weather Company, What we need to recognise here is that weather in different parts of the world will change from what it has been and that could mean more severe thunderstorms or precipitation events than in the past. "I guess we have generally done well in the past, but we need to do is to do a better job of capturing such events so that we can better inform our clients," Petty told BusinessLine in an exclusive chat in New Delhi recently. The Weather Company is launching later this year the Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting System (GRAF) model capable of predicting a thunderstorm virtually anywhere on the planet every hour. "We're looking to see how best we can capture these high impact events, thunderstorms or tropical cyclones or what have you," he said in response to a question on harsh monsoon events in India in 2018 and 2019.

India needs to pay attention to different weather conditions, including extreme events like tropical cyclones, heat waves and heavy monsoon rains, on the country as a whole as these essentially impact the population, a top meteorologist has said. Kevin Petty, director of science and forecasting for'The Weather Company', said extreme weather events should not be viewed as a "single-type trend" but seen holistically to understand the variety of impact they may have. "India, like a number of other countries, is going to have to pay attention to a variety of different types of weather conditions, particularly those extremes, whether it be a tropical cyclone, a heat wave, or you know, heavy, heavy rain during the monsoon period. All of those will essentially impact the population, as well as different aspects of operations in different ways," he said in an interaction with PTI. "I think instead of maybe looking at a single-type of trend, there is a need to look at a holistic approach here. And through that holistic approach, understand the variety of impact on the country as a whole," he said.

Had the severity grown to crisis levels, Lucas McDonald, a former TV weatherman who leads the chain's emergency operations, might have called in dozens of workers to support the handful who are posted at the division's command center in 24/7 shifts. The full-house team--typically assembled only a few times a year--would help coordinate relief efforts, adjust supply routes and disseminate information to affected stores, a playbook the company has perfected through two exceptionally hectic hurricane seasons. "Right now, we're having conversations with some of our merchants on when the right time to ship more supplies into places like Florida and the Southeast would be ahead of any possible redevelopment from Dorian after it makes its way through Hispaniola," McDonald says. Meanwhile, in Dallas, meteorologists at Southwest Airlines mapped out contingency plans for rerouting and canceling flights given various possible hurricane scenarios. And in the Atlanta nerve center of IBM-owned Weather Company, forecasters relayed storm data and analysis to corporate clients like State Farm, which in turn used it to inform IBM Watson conversational ad units that spread safety information.

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