Mobile signal will help accurately predict the weather

New technology is planned to be used by the UK Meteorological Service – the accuracy of this forecast will be maximized by 2020, when the country will have a 5G network.
 
Did you ever fall into a sudden downpour, which the weather forecasters did not promise? Very soon such situations can go to the past – by 2020, weather forecasters will be able to predict the amount of precipitation, using the signals of mobile phones.
 
Now, weather forecasters collect information coming from a network of weather stations located around the world. However, the accuracy of medium-term forecasts (from 36 hours to 24 hours) is about 65%.
 
The new technology, which is planned to be used by the Met Office of the UK (Met Office), operates according to the following principle: high-frequency radio waves transmitted by cellular towers are absorbed by rain drops in the air. This means that the signal level changes depending on how much rain falls between the towers. Using these data, weather forecasters will be able to track and predict the so-called “micro weather” (weather in small areas). The accuracy of this forecast will be maximized by 2020, when the generation of mobile communication networks 5G will appear in the country, experts say.
 
A researcher at the Met Office of the UK, Malcolm Kitchin, says: “The new 5G network will have a higher density of base stations and higher frequencies. This can provide us with detailed information on the amount of precipitation. ”
 
Met Office specialists plan to use this method as an addition to traditional weather stations. They also hope to use information collected by temperature sensors in cars in the future.

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