National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters’ perceptions of AI/ML and its use in operational forecasting

The explosion of attention on AI/ML development carries implications for the operational community, prompting questions about how novel AI/ML advancements will translate from research into operations. However, the field lacks empirical evidence on how National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters, as key intended users, perceive AI/ML and its use in operational forecasting.

This study addresses this crucial gap through structured interviews conducted with 29 NWS forecasters from October 2021 through July 2023 in which we explored their perceptions of AI/ML in forecasting. We found that forecasters generally prefer the term “machine learning” over “artificial intelligence” and that labeling a product as being AI/ML did not hurt perceptions of the products and made some forecasters more excited about the product.