Transforming weather forecasting in Canada

As severe weather events intensify and rack up societal costs, knowing what weather is coming—and having enough time to prepare—is increasingly important.

That’s where a new $5 million NSERC Alliance Society grant over five years comes in. The funding will support WxAlliance, a research collaboration that is developing a new generation of weather forecasting models by combining traditional atmospheric science with machine learning.

WxAlliance is led by Concordia University and brings together nine academic institutions and eight societal partners from across Canada. Dr. Raymond Spiteri (PhD), a professor in the University of Saskatchewan’s Department of Computer Science, is a co-investigator on the project.

Spiteri, a specialist in numerical analysis, scientific computing and high-performance computing, will lead a section of the project focused on improving the accessibility and usability of weather prediction models.

“The challenge is not simply to produce weather forecasts faster, but to ensure they are reliable,” said Spiteri. “My contribution to WxAlliance is to develop numerical methods that combine the strengths of physics-based models and machine learning without sacrificing accuracy or physical consistency. I hope this work will lead to more accurate and trustworthy predictions of local and extreme weather, giving communities and emergency responders more time to prepare and better information on which to act.”

Read more about WxAlliance on the Concordia University website.