How Meteorologists Are Using AI to Forecast Hurricane Milton and Other Storms

On Wednesday evening, Hurricane Milton will become the fifth hurricane in 2024 to make landfall in the mainland U.S. As storms like this one grow more frequent and intense, artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly central role in efforts by meteorologists and other scientists to track these storms and mitigate their harms. For years, meteorologists have built complex forecasting models of storms based on wind speeds, temperature, humidity and other factors, and recorded via readings from planes, buoys and satellites. But these models can take hours to produce updated forecasts. Machine learning models, on the other hand, draw upon vast knowledge of the earth's atmosphere and data from how previous storms have unfolded. They excel at pattern recognition, teasing out trends that most humans can't discern in a fraction of the time.