The International Business Machines Corporation, known as IBM,says it is making technology for precision weather predictions available to everyone.The company said the new weather forecasts offer more detailsand bring a level of precision once available only in major industrial countries.The forecasting tool is expected to help emergency officialsbetter predict where severe storms will hit.It may also aid airline companies planning flight paths,as well as farmers caring for crops.The new system creates weather forecasts more often and with finer detailsthan what is available outside the United States, Europe and Japan.Most forecasts have a resolution of 10 to 15 square kilometersand provide new information every six to 12 hours.IBM's Global High-Resolution Atmospheric Forecasting Systemgoes down to 3 square kilometers and provides information every hour."That's providing a level of detail that we've not been able to see in parts of the worldsuch as Southeast Asia, Africa as well as South America," notes Kevin Petty.He serves as director of science and forecastingat The Weather Company, which IBM owns.That kind of precision can provide details of where and when extremely heavy rain will fall.That could be useful in emergency situations,and could help farmers decide when to plant, harvest and fertilize crops.Fred Carr is emeritus meteorology professor at the University of Oklahoma,and was not involved with the project.Carr says the United States has a similar high-resolution forecasting system,"but it's just for the U.S. because it takes so much computer time.To do it for the whole globe is a pretty significant achievement."Carr added that it is possible to quickly collect observations from radar,airplanes and surface measurements in the United States.But he said it is not clear how IBM gets information from the other 98% of the world.Carr said he believes there will be problems in getting information,so "sometimes those forecasts aren't going to be very accurate."Users will be able to decide for themselves.The system now operates on the Weather.com websiteand The Weather Channel's application program for smartphones.In the future, IBM hopes to improve its forecastsby collecting information from atmospheric pressure sensors used in such phones.These sensors improve the precision of global positioning system, or GPS, technology.For example, they can help fitness tracking instrumentsmeasure how many steps a user has climbed.IBM said it is not currently using this informationbut plans to offer users the chance to choose it.Some privacy activists and governments have criticizedtechnology companies for collecting this kind of information.The city of Los Angeles, California has brought a case against IBMfor improperly using location information from Weather Channel app users.