Chinese AI improves forecasts as Hong Kong braces for super typhoons

An artificial intelligence model recently deployed at the Hong Kong Observatory and mainland China’s National Meteorological Centre can solve one of the toughest challenges in weather forecasting: predicting when a typhoon will rapidly intensify.

Li Qinglan, a professor at the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) who is leading the project, said the system was installed around three weeks ago and had provided “real-time updates on the progression of Typhoon Jangmi ”.

Jangmi, which formed late last month and made landfall in Japan on June 3, forced Hong Kong carriers including Cathay Pacific Airways and Hong Kong Airlines to cancel or reschedule flights to Japan .

The observatory has predicted that Hong Kong will experience four to seven typhoons between now and October, and has warned that some could become super typhoons due to the El Nino phenomenon.

Forecasting rapid intensification, when a tropical cyclone’s maximum sustained winds increase by 15 metres per second (49.2 feet per second) within a 24-hour period, or by 10m/s within 12 hours, has been one of the toughest challenges in meteorology.

“Rapid intensification rarely happens, and is highly unpredictable, making preventive measures and responses extremely likely to be delayed,” Li said in a statement issued by SIAT last week. SIAT is affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Traditional numerical weather prediction technology could not accurately reflect the evolution of typhoon intensity, she said, while the statistical-dynamic method failed to capture the non-linear characteristics of typhoon intensity changes.