Google, in partnership with the National Hurricane Center, is testing out a new artificial intelligence model for forecasting tropical storms.
Google DeepMind and Google Research have launched a new website called Weather Lab to share AI models the company is developing for this purpose. Weather Lab features Google’s latest experimental AI-based tropical cyclone model, based on stochastic neural networks. The tech giant claims this AI model can predict a cyclone’s formation, track, intensity, size and shape — generating 50 possible scenarios, up to 15 days ahead.
Other companies and weather agencies are also exploring whether AI can improve forecasts. However, these technological advances haven’t yet eliminated the need for the use of traditional weather models. According to a research paper by Google — which is yet to be peer-reviewed — its model’s five-day predictions for cyclone tracks in the North Atlantic and East Pacific were 87 miles (140 km) closer, on average, to the storm’s actual track than predictions from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in 2023 and 2024.
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While Weather Lab’s interactive website lets people see how AI models compare to the ECMWF’s physics-based models, Google has said it is just an interactive tool for now, and should not be relied upon for forecasts at present.
Google’s cyclone model is trained on data from Europe’s ERA5 archive, which includes hundreds of millions of observations collected by weather agencies around the world combined with predictions from a traditional weather model. The company also used ERA5 to train its previous AI weather prediction model GenCast. That model outperformed one of ECMWF’s leading physics-based models’ 97.2% of the time, according to research published in the journal Nature in December 2024.
Google says it is also working with the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University and other researchers in the UK and Japan to improve its AI weather models.
Despite advances in AI, real-world observations and older weather models remain important to the development of these tools. AI is so far expected to only assist traditional weather forecasting, not replace it. Adjusting to a changing climate will also rely on the ability to collect and analyze new data on increasingly extreme and erratic weather events.
This collaboration between Google and NHC comes soon after the Trump administration and DOGE reduced the National Weather Service’s staff and capacity for federal climate and weather research. There have been growing concerns over whether such research is sustainable under the Trump administration with DOGE’s actions taking a toll at the federal agency that houses the NHC and the National Weather Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The National Weather Service reduced the number of weather balloon launches after staffing cuts, and NOAA is increasingly relying on weather balloon data from private companies. Some advocates are raising alarm over the prospect of turning weather forecasts into a paid product instead of a free service.
Peter Battaglia, a researcher at Google DeepMind told The Verge “For a long time, weather has been viewed as a public good, and I think, you know, most of us agree with that … Hopefully we can contribute to that, and that’s why we’re trying to kind of partner with the public sector.”