DeepMind Blog

How WeatherNext helped the National Hurricane Center better predict Hurricane Melissa’s historic landfall in Jamaica

Learn how our WeatherNext AI model help forecasters give communities unprecedented time to prepare ahead of the historic Hurricane Melissa.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 4

WeatherNext 3: Increasing resolution and performance of global weather models with raw observations

WeatherNext 3 is a new AI‑driven global weather model that improves both spatial and temporal resolution by generating hourly forecasts at 0.1° resolution, matching the best physics‑based models. It incorporates low‑latency geostationary satellite data and learns to predict satellite‑derived precipitation, tropical cyclones, and station observations, enabling 2 m temperature and dewpoint predictions anywhere and anytime. By directly using raw observations instead of relying solely on analysis data, WeatherNext 3 sets a new state‑of‑the‑art for probabilistic medium‑range forecasting skill.

By Stephan Rasp, Boris Babenko, Dominic Masters, Andrew El-Kadi, Samier Merchant, Guy Shalev, Ilan Price, Fred Zyda, Remi Lam, Sasha Shysheya, Matthew Willson, Stratis Markou, Shreya Agrawal, Suhani Vora, Mohammed Alewi Hassen, Sunny Mak, Tom R. Andersson, Megan Bela, Akib Uddin, Nofar Peled Levi, Ben Gaiarin, Ferran Alet, Aaron Bell, Peter Battaglia, Alvaro Sanchez-Gonzalez
Microsoft Research
3d ago

Forecasting space weather risks on power grids

Extreme space‑weather events can damage power systems on Earth and degrade GPS accuracy and satellite operations. A new machine learning system can predict where damage is likely to occur 30‑60 minutes before a storm arrives. The post "Forecasting space weather risks on power grids" appeared first on Microsoft Research.

By Rohan Kannan
arXiv AI
Sep 10

Resolving sources of uncertainty in AI weather forecasting

The paper introduces Pangu‑Bayes, a probabilistic forecasting hierarchy that separates atmospheric‑state uncertainty from learned‑model uncertainty as distinct stochastic variables, allowing cross‑flow perturbations of the evolving state with Bayesian parameter samples. In tests on 90 held‑out 2023 tropical cyclones, Pangu‑Bayes reduces track, pressure, and wind errors by 54.2%, 17.2%, and 24.9% respectively, and improves rapid‑intensification detection. The study finds that atmospheric‑state variability more consistently improves track prediction, while learned‑model variability more often enhances intensity prediction, demonstrating how model‑defined uncertainty resolution can be linked to target‑dependent value and dynamical interpretation.

By Wenbo Hu, Xinlei Xiong, Shuxun Zhou, Kaifeng Bi, Lingxi Xie, Jun Zhu, Richang Hong, Qi Tian
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 4

Uncovering Insights of Compound Flooding with Data-Driven AI

arXiv:2506. 04281v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Compound flooding, driven by nonlinear interactions between multiple hydrometeorological factors, poses a significant challenge to hazard prevention.

By Xu Zheng, Chaohao Lin, Sipeng Chen, Zhuomin Chen, Jimeng Shi, Jayantha Obeysekera, Jingchao Ni, Wei Cheng, Jason Liu, Dongsheng Luo
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 25

Improving global precipitation forecasts with an AI weather model trained on satellite observations

The paper presents Laxmi, a retrained version of the AIFS weather model that uses satellite-based precipitation observations instead of ERA5 reanalysis data. Laxmi achieves a 19% improvement in global probabilistic accuracy, reduces drizzle overprediction by 33%, and boosts the 95th percentile Brier skill score by 57%. In a case study of 10 Indian tropical storms, Laxmi accurately forecasted 150 mm event-total precipitation in 7 events, outperforming both the original AIFS and the leading physical model IFS.

By Julian F. Schmitt, Bertrand Delorme, Robert C. King, Yashica Patodia, Tapio Schneider, Aditi Sheshadri, Ravi Jain
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Sep 2

TC-Next: Zero-Shot Multimodal Cyclone Forecasting

TC-Next is a multimodal deep learning model that forecasts tropical cyclone track and intensity 6–24 hours ahead by combining a foundation model’s atmospheric forecast fields with GridSat infrared satellite imagery. Trained solely on GraphCast forecasts for the Western Pacific, it reduces track error by 15–44 % and intensity error by a factor of 3–6 compared to the rule‑based tracker TempestExtremes, and maintains superior performance when applied zero‑shot to other forecast systems such as Pangu‑Weather, IFS HRES, and WeatherNext Cyclones. Ablation studies confirm that incorporating the additional satellite modality consistently improves tracking accuracy at all lead times and enhances intensity predictions, especially at longer horizons.