Benchmark Dataset for Precipitation Forecasting by Post-Processing the Numerical Weather Prediction

Abstract

Precipitation forecasting is an important scientific challenge that has wide-reaching impacts on society. Historically, this challenge has been tackled using numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, grounded on physics-based simulations. Recently, many works have proposed an alternative approach, using end-to-end deep learning (DL) models to replace physics-based NWP models. While these DL methods show improved performance and computational efficiency, they exhibit limitations in long-term forecasting and lack the explainability. In this work, we present a hybrid NWP-DL workflow to fill the gap between standalone NWP and DL approaches. Under this workflow, the outputs of NWP models are fed into a deep neural network, which post-processes the data to yield a refined precipitation forecast. The deep model is trained with supervision, using Automatic Weather Station (AWS) observations as ground-truth labels. This can achieve the best of both worlds, and can even benefit from future improvements in NWP technology. To facilitate study in this direction, we present a novel dataset focused on the Korean Peninsula, termed KoMet (Korea Meteorological Dataset), comprised of NWP outputs and AWS observations. For the NWP model, the Global Data Assimilation and Prediction Systems-Korea Integrated Model (GDAPS-KIM) is utilized. We provide analysis on a comprehensive set of baseline methods aimed at addressing the challenges of KoMet, including the sparsity of AWS observations and class imbalance. To lower the barrier to entry and encourage further study, we also provide an extensive open-source Python package for data processing and model development. Our benchmark data and code are available at https://github.com/osilab-kaist/KoMet-Benchmark-Dataset.