Weather is among the physical processes that make the future interesting. Just not knowing when a snowstorm or tornado will wreak havoc makes it so. What is life like without surprises? What does future mean, if not “unknown”? Sure, we know the possible, but the probable is less certain. Precise details about actual conditions await their manifestation in the present—but not everywhere.i recall my daughter-in-law, after she and my son moved into the Reno-Sparks area, commented that one TV weather forecaster seemed almost apologetic when the prediction called for cloudy skies.
Sure, there are places around the globe where waking up to weather one day is little different from waking up on any day, but on the Northern Hemisphere’s continents outside the arid an semiarid areas most places have variable weather under seasonal controls. In Pennsylvania, for example, I know generally that winter brings cold weather, and watching spring baseball can be a brutal experience for fans and players with winds and swirling snow. Of course, the seasonal conditions are general; exceptions occur. In these last days of fall (2024) yesterday’s temperatures fell to subfreezing, but tomorrow’s thermometer might rise into the low 50s (Fahrenheit).
Enter AI; Exit Anxiety
I asked AI to predict my local weather for tomorrow. It gave me the National Weather Service’s hour-by-hour prediction, and then added a note that weather conditions can change, so checking with the local weather forecast is advisable. Duh! Look out the window tomorrow, dummy.
I’m always amazed by TV weather forecasters who make seven-day predictions in seasons with highly variable weather. A seven-day forecast in Reno-Sparks or in Las Vegas is often right on the money. A seven-day forecast in northeastern USA during spring is pure guesswork—maybe that’s unfair to the meteorologists, so make it “informed guesswork.” Meteorologists do the best they can with data that can’t come from everywhere or from every thin layer of the troposphere, the zone of weather. But just when they think they’ve nailed a long-range forecast, that damned butterfly in Brazil flaps its wings.
Nevertheless, your future might hold more certainty as artificial intelligence plays a role in a variety of human and natural processes, including weather prediction. And if the future becomes almost as well known as the present, then your life is about to become rather boring and deterministic—unless you are addicted to routine and are somewhat or very insecure.
Personally, I like dealing with uncertainty. As I’ve said before, “Give me chaos, and you make me a god.” Not God, really, but one who can find or establish order and meaning. (It’s easy to decide on clothing for the day in an Orlando summer of high heat and humidity, not so easy in a springtime Northeast city) Chaos keeps us mentally and often physically active. Keeps us on our guard. Keeps us preparing. The downside is that disorder and uncertainty make some people detrimentally more anxious than others, the intensity which I, as a casual observer, interpret as a barometer of personal inherent insecurity, and the need to find security in social and physical phenomena outside the individual. (The same need that generates the prejudice that places people in sweeping categories of gender, color, and faith)
If AI makes weather predictions as accurately as either the current European and American models make them, then there’s little to gain from it, but Google has just run tests that demonstrate a greater accuracy. Ilan Price and Matthew Willson, in an online article write of AI’s advance in prediction capability: “Today, in a paper published in Nature, we present GenCast, our new high resolution… AI ensemble model. GenCast provides better forecasts of both day-to-day weather and extreme events than the top operational system, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ (ECMWF) ENS, up to 15 days in advance.” * GenCast was more accurate than ENS in more than 97.2% of forecasts.
Happy? Your future is shortly to become known. No more guesswork. No more anxiety.
No more worry about the weather for that picnic you planned! Put your faith in AI’s word; it’s a sure bet. Invite the relatives and neighbors. And get those tickets for that outdoor concert while they’re available. Your life’s about to change as at least one category of uncertainty vanishes into predictions on which you can rely.
*https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/gencast-predicts-weather-and-the-risks-of-extreme-conditions-with-sota-accuracy/
Sure, there are places around the globe where waking up to weather one day is little different from waking up on any day, but on the Northern Hemisphere’s continents outside the arid an semiarid areas most places have variable weather under seasonal controls. In Pennsylvania, for example, I know generally that winter brings cold weather, and watching spring baseball can be a brutal experience for fans and players with winds and swirling snow. Of course, the seasonal conditions are general; exceptions occur. In these last days of fall (2024) yesterday’s temperatures fell to subfreezing, but tomorrow’s thermometer might rise into the low 50s (Fahrenheit).
Enter AI; Exit Anxiety
I asked AI to predict my local weather for tomorrow. It gave me the National Weather Service’s hour-by-hour prediction, and then added a note that weather conditions can change, so checking with the local weather forecast is advisable. Duh! Look out the window tomorrow, dummy.
I’m always amazed by TV weather forecasters who make seven-day predictions in seasons with highly variable weather. A seven-day forecast in Reno-Sparks or in Las Vegas is often right on the money. A seven-day forecast in northeastern USA during spring is pure guesswork—maybe that’s unfair to the meteorologists, so make it “informed guesswork.” Meteorologists do the best they can with data that can’t come from everywhere or from every thin layer of the troposphere, the zone of weather. But just when they think they’ve nailed a long-range forecast, that damned butterfly in Brazil flaps its wings.
Nevertheless, your future might hold more certainty as artificial intelligence plays a role in a variety of human and natural processes, including weather prediction. And if the future becomes almost as well known as the present, then your life is about to become rather boring and deterministic—unless you are addicted to routine and are somewhat or very insecure.
Personally, I like dealing with uncertainty. As I’ve said before, “Give me chaos, and you make me a god.” Not God, really, but one who can find or establish order and meaning. (It’s easy to decide on clothing for the day in an Orlando summer of high heat and humidity, not so easy in a springtime Northeast city) Chaos keeps us mentally and often physically active. Keeps us on our guard. Keeps us preparing. The downside is that disorder and uncertainty make some people detrimentally more anxious than others, the intensity which I, as a casual observer, interpret as a barometer of personal inherent insecurity, and the need to find security in social and physical phenomena outside the individual. (The same need that generates the prejudice that places people in sweeping categories of gender, color, and faith)
If AI makes weather predictions as accurately as either the current European and American models make them, then there’s little to gain from it, but Google has just run tests that demonstrate a greater accuracy. Ilan Price and Matthew Willson, in an online article write of AI’s advance in prediction capability: “Today, in a paper published in Nature, we present GenCast, our new high resolution… AI ensemble model. GenCast provides better forecasts of both day-to-day weather and extreme events than the top operational system, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts’ (ECMWF) ENS, up to 15 days in advance.” * GenCast was more accurate than ENS in more than 97.2% of forecasts.
Happy? Your future is shortly to become known. No more guesswork. No more anxiety.
No more worry about the weather for that picnic you planned! Put your faith in AI’s word; it’s a sure bet. Invite the relatives and neighbors. And get those tickets for that outdoor concert while they’re available. Your life’s about to change as at least one category of uncertainty vanishes into predictions on which you can rely.
*https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/gencast-predicts-weather-and-the-risks-of-extreme-conditions-with-sota-accuracy/
RSS Feed