Weather monitoring will be re-imagined with IoT integration
Our ability to predict the weather is set to dramatically improve as the number of sensors and connected devices proliferates. "Weather is the original big data problem," says Bryson Koehler, CTO at the Weather Company. The Weather Company uses thousands of sources, including aircrafts, drones, smartphones, buildings and windscreen wipers. As the size and cost of IoT-enabled sensors decrease, monitoring, analysis and interpretation of climate will dramatically improve, leading to precise prediction tools that will be able to provide more accurate advance warnings, risk mitigation and more efficient use of assets.
Posted on Thursday, April 6th, 2017

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By John Lloyd

In March 2016, a company called Plume Labs partnered with Twitter to send a flock of backpack-wearing pigeons into the skies above London. The pigeons’ packs were equipped with sensors that allowed them to monitor air pollution. The “Pigeon Air Patrol” would then publish tweets informing citizens about London’s air quality.

The pigeons were a gimmick – part of an advertising campaign intended to draw attention to air pollution problems – but what they carried on their backs was a sign of what’s ahead when it comes to the weather and the Internet of Things. As sensors and connected devices proliferate, our ability to predict the weather is set to dramatically improve.

Weather stations themselves are IoT devices. They’re equipped with sensors that detect temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and wind. But that’s just the start of it. The Weather Company, for instance, draws on data from thousands of sources, including aircraft, drones, smartphones, buildings, and even the windshield wipers on moving vehicles. The company’s system harnesses this network to deliver more than 26 billion finely tuned forecasts from 2.2 billion forecast points worldwide. This vast wealth of data, as well as its technology infrastructure, led to The Weather Company being acquired by IBM in 2015 as part of the larger company’s US$3 billion investment in the Internet of Things.

“Weather, at the end of the day, is the original big data problem,” The Weather Company chief technology officer Bryson Koehler told Information Week at the time. And if you solve that big data problem, you can solve a few others for business.

Weather is one of the largest external factors affecting business performance. The Weather Company estimates that the US economy loses almost US$1 trillion a year because of weather events. However, by combining the Internet of Things with big data, businesses and governments can get advanced warnings about the exact timing, location, and severity of weather events and act to protect their people and profits accordingly. For example, airlines can receive detailed and up-to-the-minute advice on how to avoid turbulence; insurance companies can warn car insurance policyholders of bad incoming weather and direct them to shelter nearby; and farmers can identify variations in weather systems across their lands, allowing them to optimize water use and save money.

Attitudes on the preparedness hazardous weather events are also changing, with a lot more advance preparedness to mitigate risk, making communities less vulnerable. Private enterprises such as Tech Mahindra are helping lead the charge as company’s Senior Vice-president and Global Head of Integrated Engineering Solutions, Karthikeyan Natarajan said:

“Tech Mahindra works on predicting the failures on aircrafts, cars, trucks, construction equipment, tractors, dispensers, plants and medical equipment. This is leading to improved asset utilization, avoiding safety hazards and new business models to challenge the status quo.”

As sensors get smaller and cheaper and wireless communications technologies, such as Bluetooth and LTE, continue to improve, weather data collection methods will become increasingly sophisticated. But we still live in an imperfect data world. The quality of data from vehicles, for instance, can vary depending on how close the sensors are to the engine. At the same time, urban environments, lakes, rivers, and other conditions all influence climatic data that makes it difficult for sensors to capture the true story at the finest resolutions.

Some products already on the market, however, get around such problems by staying focused on the “hyperlocal”. For instance, US-based company Arable offers a low-cost crop-monitoring device called the Pulsepod that contains built-in GPS and sensors that allow it to monitor everything from plant growth, to rainfall, to soil conditions, and how much sunlight the plants are getting. The Pulsepod is solar-powered and supports both cellular and Wi-Fi connections. It feeds data to popular agricultural technology platforms such as the Farmer’s Business Network or Granular for analysis. Another example is Tech Mahindra’s Farm Guru, a solution that enables farmers to track yield and productivity.

“Thirty years ago, it was all about how to grow more crops with less inputs,” Arable CEO Adam Wolf recently told NetworkWorld, “but now we’re in an era where we’re empowering people to manage complex natural resources with precision.”

On an even more local scale, the Internet of Things is allowing homeowners to easily and affordably become precision forecasters for their own backyards. Today, consumers can buy “personal weather stations,” such as the Netatmo, which assesses indoor pollution from a carbon dioxide sensor through one module while measuring the temperature and humidity outside through another. The devices are linked to an app that can be accessed by smartphone and lets you keep track of your own microclimate remotely.

In the hyper connectivity world, Tech Mahindra is helping to connect machines, assets and people enabling governments to enhance lives and lower their vulnerability to natural disasters through the use of real-time data, saving lives and paving the way for society to thrive.