Bringing AI to Irish Weather - Announcing Google.org’s biggest commitment to Ireland
Anyone living in Ireland knows one of the national pastimes is talking about the weather. We plan our weekends, commutes and school runs around grey skies, sudden downpours and the occasional blast of sunshine.
In fact Ireland was the third-highest country searching for “weather forecast” in 2026. Given the weather we’ve had so far this year, it wasn’t surprising to see “when will the rain stop” being one of the top most Googled questions to date in 2026 with “how to keep cool” searches growing by +200%.
Predicting Irish weather has always been tricky, but as extreme events like flash floods and severe storms become more frequent, getting accurate, hyper-local forecasts matters more than ever.
Today, ahead of the International AI Summit taking place in Dublin, we announced our largest ever commitment of $5M to advance AI-powered weather forecasting and climate research in Ireland.
As part of the commitment, Google.org will provide €2.25 million ($2.5 million) in funding to the AIMSIR Centre and the Climate + Co-Centre, via the UCD Foundation supporting a four-year research programme that pairs AI with open, ground-level weather observations.
Better, local forecasts
Traditional meteorological stations provide vital insight, but they are often spaced miles apart. Sudden weather events, like flash downpours or microbursts, can easily slip through the gaps.
Researchers at the AIMSIR Centre, working alongside Met Éireann and theClimate + Co-Centre, will combine Google Earth AI models and satellite imagery with more than 70 years of historical Irish climate records. The team aims to build "nowcasting" models — systems capable of tracking fast-moving weather patterns in real time to give towns earlier, more accurate warnings. This helps alert communities to flash floods and extreme storms before they hit, giving people more time to stay safe.
Hands-on science in schools
The missing piece of hyper-local forecasting has always been dense, live, ground-level information. To solve that, the funding will support the rollout of 560 solar-powered weather stations located in schools across Ireland. The teachers in these schools will receive training from AIMSIR to bring real-world climate data directly into their classrooms.
By combining helpful AI tools with open local data, we can make our forecasts more reliable — giving people across Ireland the clear information they need to stay safe, whatever the weather brings.
