“A growing number of smart machines are anticipating future global weather patterns with new speed and accuracy…

In general, superfast A.I. can shine at spotting dangers to come, said Christopher S. Bretherton, an emeritus professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington. For treacherous heats, winds and downpours, he said, the usual warnings will be ‘more up-to-date than right now,’ saving untold lives.

Rapid A.I. weather forecasts will also aid scientific discovery, said Amy McGovern, a professor of meteorology and computer science at the University of Oklahoma who directs an A.I. weather institute. She said weather sleuths now use A.I. to create thousands of subtle forecast variations that let them find unexpected factors that can drive such extreme events as tornadoes.

‘It’s letting us look for fundamental processes,’ Dr. McGovern said. ‘It’s a valuable tool to discover new things.’

Importantly, the A.I. models can run on desktop computers, making the technology much easier to adopt than the room-size supercomputers that now rule the world of global forecasting.”

From New York Times.