Can Google Drop Florida's Hurricane Risk?

As the National Weather Service gets staggered by cuts at its parent NOAA, some of its offices are not manned 24 hours a day. That means the service lacks proper coordination in tracking violent weather and sharing data from one geographic area to another. With what could still be a major hurricane season, this could be a deadly problem and certainly one that will cost billions of dollars in damages.

One solution that has emerged as an alternative to the complex weather forecast work is AI-based forecasting services. If they work as they have been described, they are more accurate at examining smaller and smaller areas. This information can be sent to the localities most at risk.

WeatherNext

Among the AI solutions that claim to have advanced forecasting the most is Google’s WeatherNext, which is part of its AI DeepMind operations. The company says “WeatherNext models are faster and more efficient than traditional physics-based weather models and yield superior forecast reliability. The gains in prediction performance could help experts to better anticipate weather conditions, so they can save lives in the face of extreme weather events, and enhance the reliability of energy and supply chains.”

Google has already shared this technology with forecasters and scientists. It does not charge for either the service or the software. Potentially, this could bring down the government’s cost of weather monitoring.

Other organizations that might benefit from the Google service are commercial operations, such as Weather.com and AccuWeather. They are among the most visited websites in the world and have their own sets of warnings, which are sent to users when dangerous weather is approaching their locations.
Hurricane season reaches its peak this month and next. The Weather Service, Weather.com, and Accuweather can use all the help they can get.