WeatherNext 3 by Google DeepMind: status and timeline

WeatherNext 3

Give sharper, more frequent and more accurate weather forecasts, especially rain, at a fraction of the computing cost of traditional physics simulations, including in regions that forecasts have long served poorly.

ScalingStage 5 of 5

WeatherNext 3 launched Sep 2026: hourly global forecasts, now behind weather in Search, Gemini and Maps.

Updated 3 Sep 2026Checked 11 Oct0 updates this week

Milestones

No announced next step

GenCast diffusion model beats ECMWF ensemble on 97% of tests4 Dec 2024Complete.
WeatherNext 2 released, up to 8x faster, 15-day range17 Nov 2025Complete.
WeatherNext 3 launched with hourly satellite-fed forecasts3 Sep 2026Complete.

Most important, last 3 months

Google launches WeatherNext 3, hourly AI weather forecasts built from live satellite data3 Sep 2026

Current obstacles

Trusting rare extremesRecord-breaking storms and heat are rare in training data, so forecasters must check AI forecasts against physics models in exactly the cases that matter most.
Winds aloft still coarseUpper-air fields such as wind stay on a 25 km grid, five times coarser than the sharpest surface fields, which limits detail for storms and aviation.

Physics limits

Chaos caps forecast rangeThe atmosphere is chaotic: tiny errors in today's state double every few days, so useful day-to-day forecasts fade after about two weeks no matter how good the model.
Sparse observationsSatellites see cloud tops and surfaces, not the full 3D atmosphere, and oceans and poorer regions have few ground stations, so the starting picture is always incomplete.

How it works

4 parts

Inputs

Reads the sky directly

Instead of waiting for a physics model's analysis of current weather, it reads live geostationary satellite images and scattered station readings.

Ensemble

Many futures in one run

A generative network adds controlled randomness, so one model can produce many plausible forecasts; how far they spread tells forecasters how sure to be.

Outputs

Grids, tracks and stations

One model outputs gridded maps, tropical cyclone tracks and forecasts at individual stations, plus 100 m wind and solar data for clean-energy planning.

Speed

Fast on TPUs

Running a trained network is cheap: WeatherNext 2 made a forecast in under a minute on Google's TPU chips, versus hours for physics-based models.

Spec sheet

vs WeatherNext 2

Spec	WeatherNext 3	WeatherNext 2	Change
Forecast refresh	Every hour^R (reported)	Every 6 hours	▼ 5 h
Surface grid (temperature, moisture)	5 km^R (reported)	25 km	▼ 20 km
Atmosphere grid (wind)	25 km^R (reported)	—	—no comparable change
Rain forecasts, 1+ day ahead	Up to 50% more accurate^R (reported)	—	—no comparable change
Lead time (WeatherNext 2)	Up to 15 days^R (reported)	—	—no comparable change

^R reported by the company

Update log

1 update

Thu 3 Sep

Major: Google launches WeatherNext 3, hourly AI weather forecasts built from live satellite dataBlogSoftware

About Google DeepMind

The team behind WeatherNext 3

Google DeepMind

Gemini, AlphaFold, Genie, Veo, TPU chips

Google DeepMind is Alphabet's AI lab, formed in 2023 from DeepMind and Google Brain. It builds the Gemini models and leads in AI for science. AlphaFold won a share of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Gemini 3 (Nov 2025) led many benchmarks. Gemini 3.5 Pro, announced in May 2026, is delayed.
AlphaFold predicted structures for over 200 million proteins and won a share of the 2024 Chemistry Nobel.
Google's own Ironwood TPU chip is used in-house and sold to outside labs, including Anthropic.

deepmind.google (opens deepmind.google)Company profile →

Founded: 201016 yrs
Headquarters: United KingdomUnited States
Status: Subsidiaryof Alphabet
Valuation: Alphabet-owned
Works in: AIFrontier modelsComputingBiotech
Coverage: 17 programs · 53 updateslatest 3d agochecked 10 Oct
Customers: Anthropic
Partners: Isomorphic LabsBroadcom
Acquired by: Alphabet
People: Demis HassabisCEO and co-founderShane LeggCo-founder and Chief AGI ScientistJohn JumperAlphaFold lead; 2024 Nobel laureate

Spec

WeatherNext 3

WeatherNext 2

Change

Forecast refresh

Every hour^R (reported)

Every 6 hours

▼ 5 h

Surface grid (temperature, moisture)

5 km^R (reported)

25 km

▼ 20 km

Atmosphere grid (wind)

25 km^R (reported)

—

—no comparable change

Rain forecasts, 1+ day ahead

Up to 50% more accurate^R (reported)

—

—no comparable change

Lead time (WeatherNext 2)

Up to 15 days^R (reported)

—

—no comparable change