Today, Google announced new short-term precipitation forecasts are now available across Africa in Search. This expands upon our work to use machine learning to tackle the challenge of forecasting the next few hours of rain.

These forecasts are made possible through advancements in Google Research's AI-powered nowcasting (the forecasting of weather in the very near future) model MetNet, which uses satellite data and ground observations to produce state-of-the-art precipitation forecasts in data-sparse regions of the world. Google’s technology can predict global precipitation with high accuracy within a five-kilometer radius every 15 minutes for the next 12 hours — all under one minute.

Read more about this work in Africa and around the world on the Google Africa blog.