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WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model

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Re: WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model

#121
post #38

Where can I use this? I’ve been trying to find hyperlocal forecasts like darksky used to be.

Windy is my favorite weather app. The forecast is usually very good and I can switch underlying models to see how much they disagree (an indication that the weather might be erratic). Plus the wind vector animation is mesmerizing and it's fun to look at all the satellite overlays and webcam feeds.

Heh I envy your weather if variation between models implies the weather may be erratic. The models all differ pretty materially here and only Windy's proprietary METEOBLUE model actually tracks weather from weather stations well (ish.)

Re: WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model

#122
post #51
post #38

Where can I use this? I’ve been trying to find hyperlocal forecasts like darksky used to be.

The HRRR is VERY good in my opinion. It updates hourly with a 15-minute resolution 18 hours out and hourly 48 hours out. https://rapidrefresh.noaa.gov/hrrr/

It often depends on where you live. HRRR is one of the worst models on the Californian coast and frequently underestimates highs by 5+ degF and underestimates wind speeds.

Re: WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model

#123

Reminds me of a funny WWII story: Kenneth Arrow and his statisticians found that their long-range forecasts were no better than numbers pulled out of a hat. The forecasters agreed and asked their superiors to be relieved of this duty. The reply was: "The Commanding General is well aware that the forecasts are no good. However he needs them for planning purposes."

I think it was a stats class where I learned this, but as it turns out bad weather is less common than good weather. To be a fairly accurate weather person, you merely need to say "there will be no precipitation" and you'll be right like 90% of the time anywhere on earth. What makes that funny is that historically, weather forecasters have been less than 90% accurate. Now, I will say that today's weather models are p…

Not all misses are the same though.

Saying it’s going to be sunny when it rains will make a lot of people upset.

Saying it’s going to rain and being wrong generally isn’t going to upset anyone (except maybe a few farmers).

Re: WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model

#124

Reminds me of a funny WWII story: Kenneth Arrow and his statisticians found that their long-range forecasts were no better than numbers pulled out of a hat. The forecasters agreed and asked their superiors to be relieved of this duty. The reply was: "The Commanding General is well aware that the forecasts are no good. However he needs them for planning purposes."

[deleted]

Re: WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one use weather data in an energy market, if you don't mind my asking?

Seems like it would be pretty useful to forecast the supply of renewables (wind, solar, maybe some hydro).

it is indeed https://www.emsys-renewables.com/products/power_forecasts/wi...

Re: WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model

#126
I noticed my local weather forecasts from Google search have gotten significantly less accurate these days.

Like, they consistenly called for freezing seasonal overnight lows many weeks before it was remotely probable. You'd get better predictions asking anyone who's lived here a couple years. In fairness, I'm in a region that's notoriously difficult to forecast, but the popular non-Google sources seem to be generating better predictions.

I wonder if the rollout of this new model is related (either occurred and made it worse, or will come and make it better).

I'd love to get some hard data. Are there any sites out there where you can compare past performance of different prediction models at a very localized scale?

Re: WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model

#127

I noticed my local weather forecasts from Google search have gotten significantly less accurate these days. Like, they consistenly called for freezing seasonal overnight lows many weeks before it was remotely probable. You'd get better predictions asking anyone who's lived here a couple years. In fairness, I'm in a region that's notoriously difficult to forecast, but the popular non-Google sources seem to be generati…

comparing model performance for a location seems such an obvious thing but it's basically non existent, I wonder why

Re: WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model

#128
I’ve read the article and skimmed the paper, but they don’t seem to say if the model has to be retrained every few days or every now and then. Because if it’s trained on marginals it seems to me that the model essentially learns to forecast weather at each location (a bit like locals do), but weather patterns might change over time so I guess they’ll have to retrain it. The retraining frequency might be a deal breaker if for example you have to train it for 3 wall lock days every, say, 7 days.

Re: WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model

#129

It feels like real weather AI|Forecast|whatever_you_want_to_call_it is still far, far away. Maybe it's just the consumer aspect of weather apps but I don't feel as if I get any more accurate data now than I did back when my parents turned to the daily weather channel for the forecast. Still a lot of clear days when rain was predicted or the even more dreaded torrential downpour when it was supposed to be sunny and cl…

The forecasts are being actively improved, it's just not an overnight step change.

For example, I have just added rainbow.ai short term precipitation forecast into https://weathergraph.app, and it's the best short term forecast I have ever used - based on radar data + AI prediction based on wind etc.

It sounds simple, but there is surprising complexity even just getting (in fast predicting) the 'ground truth' from the radar data, as each radar is noisy, is updated at a different time, might not work at a time ... so even the "current precipitation according to radars" is not a reading, but a result of ML model.

Re: WeatherNext 2: Our most advanced weather forecasting model

#130

I noticed my local weather forecasts from Google search have gotten significantly less accurate these days. Like, they consistenly called for freezing seasonal overnight lows many weeks before it was remotely probable. You'd get better predictions asking anyone who's lived here a couple years. In fairness, I'm in a region that's notoriously difficult to forecast, but the popular non-Google sources seem to be generati…

Open-meteo has a free non commercial api. Their api exploration page is super powerful and can pull and graph model-specific forecast data. It doesn't have weathernext but it does seem to have many of the big models if you want to geek out. Does take some figuring out though.

https://open-meteo.com/

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