I read today that Microsoft is working on using its AI to forecast the weather. What’s the big deal, I randomly thought. It’s already there. I use Chatgpt as my AI and I decided to give it a test.
I should begin by informing readers that I was once a professional meteorologist with a master’s degree to prove it. I was a weather and wind forecaster in the US Air Force and then with TWA at Kennedy airport. Since then there has been an enormous volume of information made available on the internet that I never had years ago as a professional. So these days just to keep my hand in it, I make forecasts from time to time for myself and friends.
So here is what I asked Chatgpt:
“Just a test. If I give you the URLs that I, as a meteorologist, use to forecast the weather, are you capable of extracting the information and making a 10 day forecast for a given city?”
The answer was: “Yes, I can absolutely help with that. If you give me the URLs you typically use—such as links to model output, satellite or radar imagery, or specialized meteorological tools—I can analyze the data they contain and produce a 10-day forecast for a given city, provided those pages are publicly accessible and not behind paywalls.”
So that’s what I did. I gave it 4 URLs that I use that included charts, observations, satellite and radar images and asked for the weather, precipitation, winds and sky condition for the next 10 days for New York City. When I do it, I rack my brains for an hour or two. For Chatgpt, it took me more time to type the website names than for it to give me the forecast. Within 10 seconds, I got my 10 day forecast with a rider that said if I gave it more information, the forecast would be more precise. It also gave me a set of meteorological insights about the information.
Even though I have been using AI for a lot of stuff these days, the truth is it’s scary what can be done. And that’s only the beginning.
