The success of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enhanced monsoon forecasting in India has accelerated work on weather prediction models in other regions, with 30 countries set to benefit from the whole project, according to US scientists.

“Motivated by the success of the Indian monsoon work, Chicago University has just received support from the Gates Foundation to benchmark existing models over East and West Africa with a focus on rainy seasons and heatwaves,” Pedram Hassanzadeh, co-director of the university’s Human-Centred Weather Forecasts initiative, told SciDev.Net.

Benchmarking is important to assess how well both traditional and AI-based models can forecast the weather and evaluate important atmospheric phenomena such as the seasonal onset and progression of monsoons.

“A lot more can be done in India and in other regions around the world, once the forecasts are properly benchmarked,” said Hassanzadeh.

“Time and resources for benchmarking aside, scaling up and fully exploring the power of the existing methods needs resources that enable real-time forecast generation and dissemination at large scales.”

This summer, 38 million Indian farmers benefited from AI-powered forecasts using a neural general circulation model (NeuralGCM), four weeks ahead of the onset of monsoon rains.