Fengyun satellites release AI models for extreme weather prediction

The first batch of AI models for extreme weather, built on China's Fengyun meteorological satellites, was officially released at the 2026 Fengyun Satellite User Conference. This takes Fengyun's applications from "seeing the present" to "predicting the future".

The typhoon cloud image model can automatically analyze a typhoon's position, structure, intensity and trends. It covers 7 types of typhoon features and uses more than 20 satellite products. It runs every 15 minutes and creates a report in just 27 seconds. For Typhoon Surigae, it analyzed intensity, wind radius and rainfall.

The severe weather warning model uses continuous data from the Fengyun-4 satellite. It splits cloud changes into "movement of big systems" and "growth and decay of small ones", moving warnings up to 4 hours earlier.

A new AI satellite meteorology team under the Xu Jianmin Innovation Center has 49 researchers from 12 institutions. They will work together on satellite weather monitoring and early warning.