mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Kilometer-Scale Convection Allowing Model Emulation using Generative Diffusion Modeling

arXiv 2408.10958 ↗First posted 20 Aug 2024physics.ao-ph cs.LGcited by 32

On the map: Diffusion models → Flow matching, time series and science

Abstract (arXiv)

Storm-scale convection-allowing models (CAMs) are an important tool for predicting the evolution of thunderstorms and mesoscale convective systems that result in damaging extreme weather. By explicitly resolving convective dynamics within the atmosphere they afford meteorologists the nuance needed to provide outlook on hazard. Deep learning models have thus far not proven skilful at km-scale atmospheric simulation, despite being competitive at coarser resolution with state-of-the-art global, medium-range weather forecasting. We present a generative diffusion model called StormCast, which emulates the high-resolution rapid refresh (HRRR) model-NOAA's state-of-the-art 3km operational CAM. StormCast autoregressively predicts 99 state variables at km scale using a 1-hour time step, with dense vertical resolution in the atmospheric boundary layer, conditioned on 26 synoptic variables. We present evidence of successfully learnt km-scale dynamics including competitive 1-6 hour forecast skill for composite radar reflectivity alongside physically realistic convective cluster evolution, moist updrafts, and cold pool morphology. StormCast predictions maintain realistic power spectra for multiple predicted variables across multi-hour forecasts. Together, these results establish the potential for autoregressive ML to emulate CAMs -- opening up new km-scale frontiers for regional ML weather prediction and future climate hazard dynamical downscaling.

Key facts. Cited by 32 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Flow matching, time series and science, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 25 of its 90 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 20 Aug 2024.

Builds on

25 of 90 references.

Closest ancestors · 4

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2024Machine learning emulation of precipitation from km-scale UK regional climate simulations using a diffusion model19 Jul
  2. 2024DiffDA: a Diffusion Model for Weather-scale Data Assimilation11 Jan
  3. 2023Residual Corrective Diffusion Modeling for Km-scale Atmospheric Downscaling24 Sep
  4. 2023Latent diffusion models for generative precipitation nowcasting with accurate uncertainty quantification25 Apr

Other references · 21

  1. 2020Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 21,076
  2. 2020Denoising Diffusion Implicit Modelscited by 9,781
  3. 2020Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equationscited by 9,122
  4. 2015Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamicscited by 7,058
  5. 2019Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distributioncited by 4,101
  6. 2021Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Modelscited by 3,761
  7. 2022Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Modelscited by 3,045
  8. 2022Diffusion Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Methods and Applicationscited by 1,114
  9. 2022FourCastNet: A Global Data-driven High-resolution Weather Model using Adaptive Fourier Neural Operatorscited by 776
  10. 2021Skillful Precipitation Nowcasting using Deep Generative Models of Radarcited by 311
  11. 2023Spherical Fourier Neural Operators: Learning Stable Dynamics on the Spherecited by 233
  12. 2023GenCast: Diffusion-based ensemble forecasting for medium-range weathercited by 177
9 more
  1. 2020MetNet: A Neural Weather Model for Precipitation Forecastingcited by 131
  2. 2023Deep Learning for Day Forecasts from Sparse Observationscited by 72
  3. 2020Stochastic Super-Resolution for Downscaling Time-Evolving Atmospheric Fields with a Generative Adversarial Networkcited by 70
  4. 2024Deep Generative Data Assimilation in Multimodal Settingcited by 29
  5. 2024Generative Data Assimilation of Sparse Weather Station Observations at Kilometer Scalescited by 27
  6. 2023Graph-based Neural Weather Prediction for Limited Area Modelingcited by 22
  7. 2024Huge Ensembles Part I: Design of Ensemble Weather Forecasts using Spherical Fourier Neural Operatorscited by 18
  8. 2024Huge Ensembles Part II: Properties of a Huge Ensemble of Hindcasts Generated with Spherical Fourier Neural Operatorscited by 12
  9. 2021CIRA Guide to Custom Loss Functions for Neural Networks in Environmental Sciences -- Version 1cited by 8

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 4; 2025: 12; 2026: 16.

32 papers.

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  1. 2024Heavy-Tailed Diffusion Modelscited by 40
  2. 2024Continuous Ensemble Weather Forecasting with Diffusion modelscited by 30
  3. 2025Elucidated Rolling Diffusion Models for Probabilistic Forecasting of Complex Dynamicscited by 13
  4. 2024Elucidating the Design Choice of Probability Paths in Flow Matching for Forecastingcited by 12
  5. 2025Diffusion-LAM: Probabilistic Limited Area Weather Forecasting with Diffusioncited by 11
  6. 2024Local Off-Grid Weather Forecasting with Multi-Modal Earth Observation Datacited by 9
  7. 2025Dynamical Diffusion: Learning Temporal Dynamics with Diffusion Modelscited by 9
  8. 2025FLEX: A Backbone for Diffusion-Based Modeling of Spatio-temporal Physical Systemscited by 8
  9. 2025HRRRCast: a data-driven emulator for regional weather forecasting at convection allowing scalescited by 7
  10. 2026Universal Diffusion-Based Probabilistic Downscalingcited by 5
  11. 2025How to use score-based diffusion in earth system science: A satellite nowcasting examplecited by 3
  12. 2025Constructing Extreme Heatwave Storylines with Differentiable Climate Modelscited by 3
20 more
  1. 2026Towards accurate extreme event likelihoods from diffusion model climate emulatorscited by 2
  2. 2026Probabilistic Precipitation Nowcasting with Rectified Flow Transformerscited by 2
  3. 2026Bridging short- and medium-range weather forecasting with machine learningcited by 2
  4. 2025IndiaWeatherBench: A Dataset and Benchmark for Data-Driven Regional Weather Forecasting over Indiacited by 1
  5. 2025Control-Augmented Autoregressive Diffusion for Data Assimilationcited by 1
  6. 2025Learning vertical coordinates via automatic differentiation of a dynamical corecited by 1
  7. 2026SwAIther-Precip: Lead-Time-Aware Bias Correction Enables Kilometer-Scale Downscaling of Global AI Precipitation Forecasts over Switzerlandcited by 1
  8. 2026Does Your Wildfire Prediction Model Actually Work, or Just Score Well?cited by 1
  9. 2025Data-driven Mesoscale Weather Forecasting Combining Swin-Unet and Diffusion Modelscited by 0
  10. 2025FuXi-Nowcast: Environment-conditioned deep learning for severe convection nowcastingcited by 0
  11. 2026Hierarchical Testing of a Hybrid Machine Learning-Physics Global Atmosphere Modelcited by 0
  12. 2026Skillful Kilometer-Scale Regional Weather Forecasting via Global and Regional Couplingcited by 0
  13. 2026Conditional Flow Matching for Probabilistic Downscaling of Maximum 3-day Snowfall in Alaskacited by 0
  14. 2026RealBench: Benchmarking Data-Driven Numerical Weather Forecasting Under Operational Conditions and Extreme Event Challengescited by 0
  15. 2026Scaling Storm-Resolving Atmospheric AI Simulation to the Entire Planetcited by 0
  16. 2026From Global to Local: Efficient Regional Weather Downscaling with Global Weather Foundation Modelcited by 0
  17. 2026Explainable quantum-compressed machine learning for complex fluid flowscited by 0
  18. 2026An adaptive and evolvable deep reinforcement learning framework for weather predictioncited by 0
  19. 2026Do AI weather models miss extremes?cited by 0
  20. 2026West-WRF AI 2-km: High-Resolution Prediction of Integrated Vapor Transport and Precipitationcited by 0

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  1. 2024Four-hour thunderstorm nowcasting using a deep diffusion model of satellite data
  2. 2025Nowcast3D: Reliable precipitation nowcasting via gray-box learning
  3. 2026Extreme Weather Nowcasting via Local Precipitation Pattern Prediction
  4. 2025Skillful Nowcasting of Convective Clouds With a Cascade Diffusion Model
  5. 2026Geospatial Diffusion-based Evolution Synthesis (GeoDES) for Storm-Centered Weather Augmentation
  6. 2026NowcastDiT: Diffusion Transformers are Effective Precipitation Nowcasters
  7. 2026Just Weather Scoring: Efficient End-to-end Nowcasting with Distributional Diffusion
  8. 2025A Spatial-temporal Deep Probabilistic Diffusion Model for Reliable Hail Nowcasting with Radar Echo Extrapolation