# Assessing the Utility of Volumetric Motion Fields for Radar-based Precipitation Nowcasting with Physics-informed Deep Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.13589 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.13589/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 27 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 13 Mar 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Convolutional LSTM Network: A Machine Learning Approach for Precipitation Nowcasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.04214/) (2015)
- [Deep Learning for Precipitation Nowcasting: A Benchmark and A New Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03458/) (2017)
- [Extension of Convolutional Neural Network along Temporal and Vertical Directions for Precipitation Downscaling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.06571/) (2021)
- [Fully Differentiable Lagrangian Convolutional Neural Network for Physics-Informed Precipitation Nowcasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.10747/) (2024)
- [Nowcast3D: Reliable precipitation nowcasting via gray-box learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.04659/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Estimating motion from spatiotemporal geoscientific data is a fundamental component of many environmental modeling and forecasting tasks. In this work, we propose a physics-informed deep learning framework for estimating altitude-wise motion fields directly from volumetric radar reflectivity data. The model utilizes a fully differentiable semi-Lagrangian extrapolation operator to process three-dimensional inputs as independent horizontal slice sequences, enabling efficient inference of horizontal motion across multiple altitude levels. Using a multi-year radar dataset from Central Europe, we evaluate the impact of altitude-wise motion estimation on extrapolation-based precipitation forecasting and conduct a systematic dataset-scale analysis of inter-altitude motion consistency. The results show that the estimated motion fields exhibit strong vertical coherence, with high correlation across altitude levels, which results in limited improvement over traditional two-dimensional approach in this setting. The proposed framework provides a general tool for efficiently analyzing motion structure in volumetric geospatial data. The findings indicate that, in regions dominated by vertically coherent precipitation systems, the added complexity of volumetric motion modeling may offer limited benefit, warranting careful consideration in the design of efficient spatiotemporal advection models.