WindBorne Systems

The Wall Street Journal’s Eric Niiler covers how WindBorne Systems, Google, Microsoft, and NVIDIA are leading the way in using AI to revolutionize weather prediction, making forecasts thousands of times faster and significantly more accurate. 🌥️ Niiler notes that the United States Air Force, US Navy, and others are already backing WindBorne’s efforts to continue honing AI-based modeling. Check out more in this (paywall-free) link 👇: https://lnkd.in/g52HyZTx #AIforecasts #deeplearning #weatherintelligence

"WindBorne's atmospheric data is useful for world governments, which spend approximately $10 billion annually on weather observation. WindBorne's growth is slated to kick up with this past February's launch of WeatherMesh, an AI-forecasting model that's set accuracy records. Today, the company, based in Palo Alto, California, credits its Weather­Mesh model with expanding its clientele beyond the public sector." We're excited to be highlighted in Inc. Magazine's feature on companies creating value with AI in new, bold ways. Check out the full story 👇 https://lnkd.in/e8GXW-3S

Most global weather models aren’t able to forecast beyond 0.1 and 0.5 degree resolution, which makes it challenging to offer useful forecasts in areas with variable terrain like bodies of water, mountains, and other forms of elevation. ⛰️ Today, conventional (physics-based) models aren’t well-positioned to address this global resolution gap. 🌎 (Their infrastructure isn’t well-positioned to run models over large domains, and they need high compute set-ups.) We recently built a brand new in-house AI model (internally called “Pointy”) to solve the global resolution gap. 🔎 Our new transformer-based model works by distilling low-resolution grids into hyper-localized point forecasts. To get more granular, Pointy can downscale a 0.25 degree resolution model to produce point-forecasts at arbitrarily high resolution, taking into account elevation and soil-type data from around the globe. Check out our machine learning blog post by Clay Malott to learn more about how our high-resolution model works and the unique opportunity to use AI to solve some of the toughest lingering forecasting challenges. 👇🔗 https://lnkd.in/gH5Gqcni #AIforecasts #planetaryintelligence #climatetech

NBC Bay Area came to visit our new manufacturing and R&D space in Palo Alto. 🎥 Scott Budman and Andrew Mendez caught up with our cofounder & CEO John Dean on how WindBorne Systems is leveraging the past 20 years of technological advancement to better sense the atmosphere, and in the process, improve forecasts and climate understanding everywhere. 🌎 Check out the segment and article 👇 https://lnkd.in/gDYRvkV7

The Wall Street Journal’s Tech News Briefing podcast did a deep dive with Eric Niiler on how AI is learning to predict extreme weather and the critical role of better underlying weather data. 🌪️🎙️ Check out minute 8 to hear about how a small amount of WindBorne’s atmospheric balloon data improved NOAA: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration tropical storm ground track forecasts by up to 18%. 👀 https://lnkd.in/g9fvaRSx

Our team turned the paradigm of atmospheric observation on its head. 🌎 Instead of relying on single-use balloons that can only collect data over one brief, vertical path, we spent nearly a decade developing a one-of-a-kind autonomous, long duration weather balloon. 🎈 How does our proprietary self-flying system work? Here’s a breakdown of what happens under-the-hood from pre-flight through navigation 👇 https://lnkd.in/gxUPptx5 #AIforecasts #planetaryintelligence #climatetech

We're thrilled to be part of Inc. Magazine's 2024 #Inc5000. 🎉 We're on a mission to drive weather and planetary intelligence forward and couldn't be more inspired by how much more impact for people and the planet lies ahead. 🎈🌎 #weatherintelligence #climatetech #AIforecasts #planetarysensing

The South Africa-based Mail & Guardian got the scoop on our new initiative with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve atmospheric weather observation over sub-Saharan Africa. With Gates’ backing, WindBorne will launch more than 100 of our smart, sustainable, long-duration sensing balloons from our new launch site in Kenya’s Kajiado region, in time for the country’s short rainy season. 🌧️ The balloons will gather critical atmospheric data over Kenya and sub-Saharan Africa that can inform everything from agricultural forecasts for small-holder farmers, to broader weather forecasts to improve public safety and extreme weather preparedness. The new launch site is part of a broader push by the Gates Foundation and area governments to improve weather data collection across the continent, which remains widely under-observed. 🌎 Check out more in Umamah Bakharia’s coverage 👇 https://lnkd.in/dgBhJZU9 #aiforecasts #weatherintelligence #climatetech

Ambitious experimentation is a feature of how we build at WindBorne Systems, not a distraction. Case in point: our recent tests to use radio as an additional communication system – beyond satellites – for our global balloon constellation. In a new blog, our electrical engineering lead Sarah Brennan explains how radio can help expand the sensing capabilities of our balloon network by making it possible to leverage technology like deployable sensors. Deployable sensors, such as dropsondes, can be particularly useful for sampling active extreme weather such as hurricanes and winter storms, which are tougher, though not impossible, to observe via balloon or aircraft. Sarah walks through our early test set up and analysis (teaser: the curvature of the Earth can get in the way of radio message reception). She also looks at other long-term use cases: even when WindBorne Systems’ sensing network is many times more comprehensive, radio can still serve as a back-up system if a balloon has trouble connecting to satellites. Check out her Notebook 👇 https://lnkd.in/gQBBtzpa #weatherintelligence #AIforecasts #engexperiments

Our weather balloon constellation has been busy monitoring atmospheric data across the Atlantic and around the coast of West Africa for this year’s hurricane season. 🌎 Check out a real-time snapshot of balloons launched from our permanent site on Cabo Verde, an archipelago in West Africa, along with W-1425’s mission control dash. Our constellation is the only technology that can cost-effectively collect this essential missing data, which will dramatically improve both physics- and AI-based hurricane forecasts as our sensing network scales. 🌎👇 #balloontech #AIforecasts #weatherintelligence