Weather forecasts, believe it or not, have come a long way. A five-day forecast today is as accurate as a three-day forecast four decades ago.
But the 10-day forecast? That’s still a coin flip — or an opportunity if you’re in the weather prediction business.
There are two ways to better predict the weather: Measure it more accurately, or describe how it works in more excruciating scientific detail.
Enter WindBorne, a start-up in Palo Alto, Calif. When its chief executive, John Dean, was driving a battered Subaru around the Bay Area a few years ago, using tanks of helium to launch weather balloons in front of potential investors, the company’s plan was to do the first thing. Its balloons fly longer than most, collecting more measurements of temperature, humidity and other indicators in the upper atmosphere to create a more precise picture.
Artificial intelligence has allowed WindBorne to do the second thing, too. Thanks to leaps in deep learning, the observations picked up by WindBorne’s far-flung balloons can be turned into a more robust picture of the future. The combination could finally make longer-term forecasts as useful as a look at tomorrow’s weather.
