Deterministic Guidance Diffusion Model for Probabilistic Weather Forecasting

Weather forecasting requires not only accuracy but also the ability to perform probabilistic prediction. However, deterministic weather forecasting methods do not support probabilistic predictions, and conversely, probabilistic models tend to be less accurate. To address these challenges, in this paper, we introduce the \textbf{\textit{D}}eterministic \textbf{\textit{G}}uidance \textbf{\textit{D}}iffusion \textbf{\textit{M}}odel (DGDM) for probabilistic weather forecasting, integrating benefits of both deterministic and probabilistic approaches. During the forward process, both the deterministic and probabilistic models are trained end-to-end. In the reverse process, weather forecasting leverages the predicted result from the deterministic model, using as an intermediate starting point for the probabilistic model. By fusing deterministic models with probabilistic models in this manner, DGDM is capable of providing accurate forecasts while also offering probabilistic predictions. To evaluate DGDM, we assess it on the global weather forecasting dataset (WeatherBench) and the common video frame prediction benchmark (Moving MNIST). We also introduce and evaluate the Pacific Northwest Windstorm (PNW)-Typhoon weather satellite dataset to verify the effectiveness of DGDM in high-resolution regional forecasting. As a result of our experiments, DGDM achieves state-of-the-art results not only in global forecasting but also in regional forecasting. The code is available at: \url{https://github.com/DongGeun-Yoon/DGDM}.