# Data-driven Mesoscale Weather Forecasting Combining Swin-Unet and Diffusion Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.19354 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.19354/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Flow matching, time series and science, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 18 of its 42 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Mar 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Flow matching, time series and science](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/flow-matching-time-series-and-science/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 18 of 18)

- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00364/) (2022)
- [Swin Transformer V2: Scaling Up Capacity and Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.09883/) (2021)
- [Swin-Unet: Unet-like Pure Transformer for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05537/) (2021)
- [Real-Time Single Image and Video Super-Resolution Using an Efficient Sub-Pixel Convolutional Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.05158/) (2016)
- [FourCastNet: A Global Data-driven High-resolution Weather Model using Adaptive Fourier Neural Operators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.11214/) (2022)
- [Residual Corrective Diffusion Modeling for Km-scale Atmospheric Downscaling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.15214/) (2023)
- [Improving data-driven global weather prediction using deep convolutional neural networks on a cubed sphere](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.11927/) (2020)
- [SUNet: Swin Transformer UNet for Image Denoising](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.14009/) (2022)
- [SwinRDM: Integrate SwinRNN with Diffusion Model towards High-Resolution and High-Quality Weather Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03110/) (2023)
- [Kilometer-Scale Convection Allowing Model Emulation using Generative Diffusion Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.10958/) (2024)
- [ArchesWeather & ArchesWeatherGen: a deterministic and generative model for efficient ML weather forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.12971/) (2024)
- [Fast, Scale-Adaptive, and Uncertainty-Aware Downscaling of Earth System Model Fields with Generative Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.02774/) (2024)
- [Unpaired Downscaling of Fluid Flows with Diffusion Bridges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.01822/) (2023)
- [Do AI models produce better weather forecasts than physics-based models? A quantitative evaluation case study of Storm Ciar'an](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02658/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Data-driven weather prediction models exhibit promising performance and advance continuously. In particular, diffusion models represent fine-scale details without spatial smoothing, which is crucial for mesoscale predictions, such as heavy rainfall forecasting. However, the applications of diffusion models to mesoscale prediction remain limited. To address this gap, this study proposes an architecture that combines a diffusion model with Swin-Unet as a deterministic model, achieving mesoscale predictions while maintaining flexibility. The proposed architecture trains the two models independently, allowing the diffusion model to remain unchanged when the deterministic model is updated. Comparisons using the Fractions Skill Score and power spectral analysis demonstrate that incorporating the diffusion model leads to improved accuracy compared to predictions without it. These findings underscore the potential of the proposed architecture to enhance mesoscale predictions, particularly for strong rainfall events, while maintaining flexibility.