A new artificial intelligence tool from Google’s DeepMind is smashing barriers and achieving unmatched skill and speed in devising 15-day weather forecasts. The tool, called GenCast, hopes to help the public avoid the worst effects of extreme weather by providing reliable forecasts 15 days in advance.
Last year, Google debuted DeepMind GraphCast and the original tool produced reliable forecasts up to 10 days in advance. Researchers say they believe they’ve made decades worth of improvements in one year, with rapid progress in the new GenCast tool.
GenCast was tested against the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts Ensemble Prediction System, a service that 35 nations rely on to produce their own weather forecasts. When compared to 15-day forecasts of 1,320 wind speeds, temperatures, and other atmospheric features, GenCast outperformed the center’s forecasts 97.2% of the time.
GenCast is able to produce a 15-day forecast in just minutes, compared to the hours or days for a supercomputer to produce them.
As of now, GenCast is also able to predict with great accuracy the paths of hurricanes. However, a current limitation is that it provides little information about the wind speeds and strengths of the hurricanes. Researchers, though, are confident that they will find a solution for that.
