AI is helping with hurricane forecasting

It seems like it’s the case of “feast or famine” when it comes to all of these wild weather extremes. While it continues to be much drier than normal across the Inland Northwest, flooding rains are affecting parts eastern U.S.

Last Friday, a major storm system brought over 10 inches of rain in 6 hours and over 11 inches in 12 hours along the Tennessee and Georgia border. Many forecasters called this a “1,000-year flood.”

However, on the flip side, the Inland Northwest continues to have severe to extreme drought conditions based on the latest information from the U.S. Drought Monitor. Pacific storm systems that are providing moisture to the northwestern coastlines, are weakening considerably as they move over the Cascade mountains and running into a strong high pressure system.

As of the weekend, about 12 inches of precipitation has fallen at Climatologist Cliff Harris’s station for 2026. This compares to the normal to date of approximately 20.5 inches. Last year at this time, Coeur d’Alene reported 12.84 inches but ended up with 19.34 inches thanks to a wetter than average December.

The long-range computer models are pointing to an increasing chance of rain and mountain snow toward middle of this month, which is around the end of the normally wetter than normal new moon cycle that began Nov. 8.

The normal precipitation for the entire year in Coeur d’Alene is 26.77 inches. At the Spokane International Airport, the average moisture total is 16.45 inches. Year-to-date, the airport has only received 8.24 inches. Last year at this time, they had 10.74 inches.

As we’ve mentioned in previous articles, the driest calendar year in Coeur d’Alene’s history occurred in 1929 with 15.18 inches. With the wetter than average pattern taking longer to develop, the latest forecast has our final moisture total at around 18 inches, but with this El Nino and drought pattern we’re in, it could stay dry.

There appears to be no end in sight for all this extreme weather. According to NOAA, we still have a warmer El Nino sea-surface temperature event that continues to strengthen and forecasters are projecting this phenomenon to last through at least March 2027. The chances of this occurring are now higher than 83%. El Nino may slowly weaken in mid-2027 and here are a few indicators that we could be talking about a new, cooler La Nina pattern late next year, but it would probably be more likely in 2028.

The latest information indicates that ocean temperatures along the Equator and near the International Date Line are slightly above average. However, sea-surface temperatures are much warmer closer to the West Coast of South America. In fact, near the South American coast, readings are a whopping 8.3 degrees above the long-term average.

With the strong El Nino, the number of named storms in the Atlantic and Caribbean regions are still below normal levels. As of the weekend, there have been 10 named storms with only 1 hurricane. It was starting to look like we would have a year with no hurricanes, but Hurricane Isaias formed in early October. It is extremely rare for no hurricanes to form in the Atlantic and Caribbean waters for an entire season. According to NOAA, the last time there was no hurricane formation in the Atlantic was 112 years ago in 1914. In fact, during that season, there was only one named storm.

By contrast, there have been 25 named storms and 13 hurricanes in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. The average number of named storms is 15 in the eastern Pacific Ocean and 3 in the central portions.

With the expansion of Artificial Intelligence, hurricane forecasters are using this new tool more frequently to make predictions. According to an article by NPR, AI was one of the best predictors of a storm’s path and strength by the end of the 2025 season in the Atlantic and Caribbean waters. The article states that most hurricane forecast models are based on physics and rely on current data, including temperature, pressure and winds that are measured by satellites and aircrafts. However, AI depends more on the history of these storms by analyzing their previous paths and strengths.

Even though the Atlantic and Caribbean region only had 1 hurricane this 2026 season, AI did a much better job at forecasting landfall near Destin, Fla. Other models had the storm tracking father to the west.

According to a recent study published in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, there is new weather forecasting research that is using AI (Artificial Intelligence) to help with extreme weather forecasting as much as 6 weeks in advance. Forecasting with the current system can take hours to analyze, in addition to large computer resources, as many computer forecast models are accessed to make the best weather prediction as possible. With the new advanced AI computers, models can run over 300 versions of a forecast, collect local, satellite and other critical data and create a forecast out to 6 weeks in a matter of minutes. 

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Contact Randy Mann at [email protected].