FARGO — Artificial intelligence will likely soon make its way into weather forecasting.
To clarify, a computer weather model is not the same thing as AI. A weather model is a complex set of equations with input from current, measured weather conditions. The output of a weather model is nothing more than the answer to this complex set of equations. Different weather models have different skills and tendencies based on how each model simplifies the atmospheric processes.
A human weather forecaster is the one who decides what the weather is likely to do based on experience with weather patterns and weather models. AI is a brain-like computer application that can do the deciding presently done by humans. As the AI gains experience through failure and success, it gets smarter. It is a matter of time, maybe just a few years, before AI will be faster and better at forecasting weather than human forecasters are today.
John Wheeler is Chief Meteorologist for WDAY, a position he has had since May of 1985. Wheeler grew up in the South, in Louisiana and Alabama, and cites his family’s move to the Midwest as important to developing his fascination with weather and climate. Wheeler lived in Wisconsin and Iowa as a teenager. He attended Iowa State University and achieved a B.S. degree in Meteorology in 1984. Wheeler worked about a year at WOI-TV in central Iowa before moving to Fargo and WDAY..
