operational forecasting centers

Abstract: Ensemble weather forecasts can look reliable in global averages while hiding too little spread in some cases and too much in others. These errors vary across variables, spatial scales, lead times, and weather states. Adapting randomness during forecasting can correct these errors, but training fixes stochastic behavior beforehand and output calibration acts afterward. Inference guidance also acts during forecasting, but typically scores ensemble members separately rather than the ensemble as a whole. Reliability feedback arrives at the end, and tracing it backward through many chaotic forecast steps is expensive and unstable. We therefore introduce Dynamic and Informed Adjustment of the Native Stochastic Law (DIAL), which controls a frozen model's native stochasticity. DIAL learns from past forecasts to predict whether each variable and scale needs more or less spread. As a forecast develops, it estimates how possible noise changes will affect later forecast accuracy and reliability. It combines these predictions to make small noise updates at each step. This loop avoids retraining the weather model and full backpropagation through the forecast. We evaluate DIAL on FourCastNet 3 (FCN3) using later ERA5 years unseen during training. DIAL provides better scale-resolved reliability than learned postprocessing and reward-based control baselines. Relative to the unmodified Native FCN3 reference, DIAL achieves an 8.27% improvement in the primary multiscale continuous ranked probability score (CRPS).