arXiv Machine Learning

Nowcasting of Tropical Cyclone Wind Fields and Intensity from Geostationary Imagery

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
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 3

TC-Next: Zero-Shot Multimodal Cyclone Forecasting

TC-Next is a multimodal deep learning model that forecasts tropical cyclone track and intensity for 6‑24 hour lead times by combining atmospheric forecast fields from a foundation model 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.

By Zhe Wang, Sijie Chen, Yiming Luo, Daehyun Kim, Chien-Yi Chang
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 28

Bridging short- and medium-range weather forecasting with machine learning

The paper introduces Nested‑EAGLE, a 0.25° global weather model with a 6 km refinement over the contiguous United States, designed to merge short‑ and medium‑range forecasts into a single system. It shows lower mean‑squared error for near‑surface and low‑level variables over the U.S. compared to NOAA’s GFS and HRRR, while remaining competitive globally. Although precipitation forecasts are less skillful than HRRR’s deterministic training, Nested‑EAGLE delivers the most accurate storm‑location predictions at longer lead times, with blurred extrema.

By Timothy A. Smith, Mariah Pope, Sergey Frolov, Brett Basarab, Daniel Abdi, Paul Madden, Isidora Jankov
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 13

Earth observation embeddings are effective sub-grid descriptors for probabilistic weather downscaling

arXiv:2608. 12271v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Global weather reanalyses and forecasts resolve the evolving atmospheric state on coarse grids, but site-specific applications require predictions at arbitrary locations where near-surface conditions also depend on unresolved terrain and land-surface properties.

By Pedro Sousa (Department of Computer Science, University of Cambridge), Will Tebbutt (Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge), Sadiq Jaffer (Department of Computer Science, University of Cambridge), Robin Young (Department of Computer Science, University of Cambridge), Anil Madhavapeddy (Department of Computer Science, University of Cambridge), Richard E. Turner (Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge)
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 16

Can AI Forecast the Extremes? Evaluating Probabilistic Weather Models on Tropical Cyclones

The study evaluates probabilistic AI weather models—GenCast, FourCastNet 3, and FGN—against the ECMWF IFS-ENS ensemble for tropical cyclone forecasting. Using new probabilistic metrics, the authors find that AI models, particularly FGN, outperform IFS-ENS in cyclone tracking, achieving better location scores for 90% of storms in 2025. The analysis also identifies intensity and spread limitations, model‑specific failure modes, and the influence of pretraining data, highlighting opportunities for targeted improvement.

By Nathan Chalumeau, Xavier Renard, Remi Meynadier, Hugo Rakotoarimanga, Marcin Detyniecki, Emmanuel de Bezenac