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DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones

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31–40 of 110 posts

Re: DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically typhoon forecasting, at this moment, is more valuable. These predictions are matters of life, death, and billions of dollars in damage.

I know this is uncharitable and I am wrong but I am having trouble coming up with concrete scenarios where you die with 2 days notice but survive with 3. I am nonethless a believer that more accurate forecasting has value.

Hurricane Maria went from Cat 2 to Cat 5 in less than 24 hours, and turned making a direct hit to Dominica in 2017.

Re: DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones

#32
Everything in AI seems to be focused on LLMs lately. But in my opinion, powerful problem-specific models like this are even more interesting. The SOTA AI models used in weather forecasting are already outperforming the classic NWP models while being orders of magnitude more efficient (inference). Most are based on multi scale (hierarchical) Graph Neural Networks, an architecture which is not often talked about. The original Graphcast paper is worth a read if you think this is interesting: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.12794

Re: DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones

#33
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is uncharitable and I am wrong but I am having trouble coming up with concrete scenarios where you die with 2 days notice but survive with 3. I am nonethless a believer that more accurate forecasting has value.

Could you imagine a scenario where from warning to complete evacuation takes more than two days? Evacuating a whole area is a hard task, particularly once you start looking at more complex problems (elderly, prisons, hospitals).

[deleted]

Re: DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones

#34
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is uncharitable and I am wrong but I am having trouble coming up with concrete scenarios where you die with 2 days notice but survive with 3. I am nonethless a believer that more accurate forecasting has value.

Could you imagine a scenario where from warning to complete evacuation takes more than two days? Evacuating a whole area is a hard task, particularly once you start looking at more complex problems (elderly, prisons, hospitals).

I feel like the details of this are highly dependent on the confidence of the warning; moving large numbers of people (particularly elderly) will result in some deaths regardless. I guess more time to do it should help though.

Re: DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically typhoon forecasting, at this moment, is more valuable. These predictions are matters of life, death, and billions of dollars in damage.

I know this is uncharitable and I am wrong but I am having trouble coming up with concrete scenarios where you die with 2 days notice but survive with 3. I am nonethless a believer that more accurate forecasting has value.

The 2 vs 3 days makes less of an impact on personal decision making but has massive benefits for decision making at the country wide response level.

Re: DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones

#37
post #3

I just discovered typhoon/cyclone predictions and they're insane. I get mine via https://zoom.earth (whose iPhone app is terrific). Here's a selection from Typhoon Dolphin, currently sitting off the east coast of China. Dolphin continues its slow, trochoidal Z motion, generally heading westward deeper into the East China Sea. Over the past 12 hours, the system completed another cyclonic loop and has decelerated, exhi…

If you’re just getting into this tropical tidbits[0] is my go to for more raw data. Less pretty than zoom earth but also an interesting place to see what the models are predicting on each of their runs which is then interesting to compare to actual forecast guidance. 1: https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/

I am getting into cyclone predictions (for maritime scheduling)

Is there a basic/freemium resource for past events? Mostly just very coarse spatial/temporal maps of past events

Re: DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically typhoon forecasting, at this moment, is more valuable. These predictions are matters of life, death, and billions of dollars in damage.

Valuable, agreed. But lucrative?

I've always assumed that insurance and/or government departments that would spend money due to storms would be the ones funneling money to these sorts of efforts. It's not exactly something you can easily sell directly to individuals who would benefit. It would be pretty dystopian for them to sell subscriptions for an extra 24 hrs notice on the next typhoon :P

Re: DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones

#39

Everything in AI seems to be focused on LLMs lately. But in my opinion, powerful problem-specific models like this are even more interesting. The SOTA AI models used in weather forecasting are already outperforming the classic NWP models while being orders of magnitude more efficient (inference). Most are based on multi scale (hierarchical) Graph Neural Networks, an architecture which is not often talked about. The o…

You say this as if you don't need he MWP models to train the AI models? The accuracy of the AI Prediction depends entirely on the quality of the training dataset...

Re: DeepMind's WeatherNext model achieves breakthrough forecasting cyclones

#40
post #3

I just discovered typhoon/cyclone predictions and they're insane. I get mine via https://zoom.earth (whose iPhone app is terrific). Here's a selection from Typhoon Dolphin, currently sitting off the east coast of China. Dolphin continues its slow, trochoidal Z motion, generally heading westward deeper into the East China Sea. Over the past 12 hours, the system completed another cyclonic loop and has decelerated, exhi…

If you’re just getting into this tropical tidbits[0] is my go to for more raw data. Less pretty than zoom earth but also an interesting place to see what the models are predicting on each of their runs which is then interesting to compare to actual forecast guidance. 1: https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/

For atlantic basin hurricanes (and the occasional one that could impact Hawaii he also does fantastic youtube videos
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