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Main Authors: Kossaifi, Jean, Kovachki, Nikola, Mardani, Morteza, Leibovici, Daniel, Ravuri, Suman, Shokar, Ira, Calvello, Edoardo, Abbas, Mohammad Shoaib, Harrington, Peter, Subramaniam, Ashay, Brenowitz, Noah, Bonev, Boris, Byeon, Wonmin, Kreis, Karsten, Durran, Dale, Vahdat, Arash, Pritchard, Mike, Kautz, Jan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.18111
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author Kossaifi, Jean
Kovachki, Nikola
Mardani, Morteza
Leibovici, Daniel
Ravuri, Suman
Shokar, Ira
Calvello, Edoardo
Abbas, Mohammad Shoaib
Harrington, Peter
Subramaniam, Ashay
Brenowitz, Noah
Bonev, Boris
Byeon, Wonmin
Kreis, Karsten
Durran, Dale
Vahdat, Arash
Pritchard, Mike
Kautz, Jan
author_facet Kossaifi, Jean
Kovachki, Nikola
Mardani, Morteza
Leibovici, Daniel
Ravuri, Suman
Shokar, Ira
Calvello, Edoardo
Abbas, Mohammad Shoaib
Harrington, Peter
Subramaniam, Ashay
Brenowitz, Noah
Bonev, Boris
Byeon, Wonmin
Kreis, Karsten
Durran, Dale
Vahdat, Arash
Pritchard, Mike
Kautz, Jan
contents The recent revolution in data-driven methods for weather forecasting has lead to a fragmented landscape of complex, bespoke architectures and training strategies, obscuring the fundamental drivers of forecast accuracy. Here, we demonstrate that state-of-the-art probabilistic skill requires neither intricate architectural constraints nor specialized training heuristics. We introduce a scalable framework for learning multi-scale atmospheric dynamics by combining a directly downsampled latent space with a history-conditioned local projector that resolves high-resolution physics. We find that our framework design is robust to the choice of probabilistic estimator, seamlessly supporting stochastic interpolants, diffusion models, and CRPS-based ensemble training. Validated against the Integrated Forecasting System and the deep learning probabilistic model GenCast, our framework achieves statistically significant improvements on most of the variables. These results suggest scaling a general-purpose model is sufficient for state-of-the-art medium-range prediction, eliminating the need for tailored training recipes and proving effective across the full spectrum of probabilistic frameworks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_18111
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Demystifying Data-Driven Probabilistic Medium-Range Weather Forecasting
Kossaifi, Jean
Kovachki, Nikola
Mardani, Morteza
Leibovici, Daniel
Ravuri, Suman
Shokar, Ira
Calvello, Edoardo
Abbas, Mohammad Shoaib
Harrington, Peter
Subramaniam, Ashay
Brenowitz, Noah
Bonev, Boris
Byeon, Wonmin
Kreis, Karsten
Durran, Dale
Vahdat, Arash
Pritchard, Mike
Kautz, Jan
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
The recent revolution in data-driven methods for weather forecasting has lead to a fragmented landscape of complex, bespoke architectures and training strategies, obscuring the fundamental drivers of forecast accuracy. Here, we demonstrate that state-of-the-art probabilistic skill requires neither intricate architectural constraints nor specialized training heuristics. We introduce a scalable framework for learning multi-scale atmospheric dynamics by combining a directly downsampled latent space with a history-conditioned local projector that resolves high-resolution physics. We find that our framework design is robust to the choice of probabilistic estimator, seamlessly supporting stochastic interpolants, diffusion models, and CRPS-based ensemble training. Validated against the Integrated Forecasting System and the deep learning probabilistic model GenCast, our framework achieves statistically significant improvements on most of the variables. These results suggest scaling a general-purpose model is sufficient for state-of-the-art medium-range prediction, eliminating the need for tailored training recipes and proving effective across the full spectrum of probabilistic frameworks.
title Demystifying Data-Driven Probabilistic Medium-Range Weather Forecasting
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.18111