Microsoft Weather extends extreme rain forecasts to six hours
MW-Nowcast: Six-hour ensemble nowcasting of extreme precipitation
Machine Learning
Summary
Predicting heavy rainfall early can help warn people before floods happen. The authors developed a computer model called MW-Nowcast that looks at radar data and predicts rain patterns up to six hours ahead. It combines a stable forecast of general storm structure with varied predictions about smaller storm changes. This model works better than earlier ones for predicting heavy rain, doubling warning times in several regions. More warning time can help emergency teams act to protect people and homes.
What this means in practice
- •For weather forecasters: Produce six-hour forecasts of extreme rain with higher skill to improve early warnings for flash floods and heavy storms.
- •For emergency response teams: Gain additional lead time to plan and execute safety measures before extreme rainfall events strike.
Authors
Ning Wang, Zuliang Fang, Weixin Jin, Zhongjian Lv, Shuang Qin, Pengcheng Zhao, Siqi Xiang, Jiang Bian, Haoyi Xiong, Nan Guan, Bin Zhang, Liangjie Zhang, Denvy Deng, Qi Zhang, Matt Corey, Jitu Keshri, Sridhar Iyer, Hongyu Sun, Kit Thambiratnam, Jonathan Weyn, Richard E. Turner, Haiyu Dong
Abstract
Extending reliable nowcasting of extreme precipitation could provide critical additional time for warnings and emergency response during high-impact events such as flash floods. Radar-based generative machine-learning models have enabled skilful hyperlocal precipitation nowcasting, but accurate prediction of intense precipitation remains confined to the first few hours. Because storm-scale structure is predictable for longer than individual cells, a natural strategy is to predict that structure while generatively modelling only the uncertain local growth, decay, reorganisation and initiation of storms. Here we present Microsoft Weather Nowcast (MW-Nowcast), a six-hour ensemble radar nowcasting model that jointly learns a deterministic predictor to capture organised precipitation structure shared across ensemble members, and a generator to produce diverse local residuals around this shared prediction. Across independent test data from the United States, Europe and China, MW-Nowcast achieves higher detection skill than leading methods for heavy and extreme precipitation throughout the 6 h horizon. For the most intense rainfall, MW-Nowcast doubles the available warning time across all three regions, delivering 6 h forecasts with skill previously limited to 3 h for the leading generative baseline. A cost-loss decision analysis shows that MW-Nowcast retains substantial value for a broad range of applications even at 4-6 h, where alternative methods offer little benefit. These additional hours can give forecasters and emergency managers the time to warn and act before extreme rainfall strikes, helping to protect lives and property.