WindBorne Systems

The Wall Street Journal’s Eric Niiler covers how WindBorne Systems, Google, Microsoft, and NVIDIA are leading the way in using AI to revolutionize weather prediction, making forecasts thousands of times faster and significantly more accurate. ??? Niiler notes that the United States Air Force, US Navy, and others are already backing WindBorne’s efforts to continue honing AI-based modeling. Check out more in this (paywall-free) link ??: https://lnkd.in/g52HyZTx #AIforecasts #deeplearning #weatherintelligence

As #COP29 deliberates about climate financing for developing countries, TomorrowNow.org is proud to partner with WindBorne Systems with the aim of leveraging their weather balloon data as an input to our Global Access Platform (GAP) that's going to ensure accessibility & affordability of next gen weather and climate datasets in helping farmer-facing organizations better drive impact at the last mile #WhyWeatherMatters ??#ClimateResilience for 100M smallholder #farmers by 2030.Let's go!! Kenya Meteorological Department Kartoza (Pty) Ltd Rhiza Research Regen Organics Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

A big thank you to Aadi Agrawal and the Innovate @ Berkeley team for an incredible experience! We had a blast learning about other startups, meeting brilliant students, and telling people about WindBorne Systems!

??Just got back from Nairobi, visiting our first launch site in the Southern Hemisphere! Over the past few months, in collaboration with the Kenya Meteorological Department, WindBorne Systems has been launching our long-duration weather balloons to tackle the critical weather data gap in Sub-Saharan Africa. This marks the beginning of a multi-phase grant with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Alongside the Gates Foundation, TomorrowNow.org and other partners, we are joining the commitment to meet the climate adaptation needs of smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, delivering localized, reliable weather data to build resilient agricultural systems. Why this matters: ??? Sparse Data = Limited Forecast Accuracy: Atmospheric and surface observations in Sub-Saharan Africa are among the lowest globally, meaning localized, reliable weather data is in short supply. ?? High-Stakes Agriculture: With a heavy reliance on rain-fed agriculture rather than irrigation, smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa face significant risks to their yield with each unpredictable weather pattern ?? Funding Gap: Only 2% of global climate finance supports smallholder farmers in Africa and South Asia. To truly scale impact, we need increased funding and more efficient tech solutions. Over the next year or so, WindBorne will be demonstrating its impact in our Global Sounding Balloons and WeatherMesh model. Here’s to building a climate-adaptive future—one launch at a time. ???? #weatherdata #kenya #climatetech #climateadaptation #agriculture

Last month, Hurricane Milton took the lives of at least 14 people and caused an estimated $50 billion in damages. It also became one of the fastest to intensify, with winds accelerating by 150 kilometers per hour in a day, a rate the National Hurricane Center (NHC) called “explosive.” Unfortunately, major forecasts weren’t able to predict this intensification. What went wrong? Forecasting models, both conventional and AI-based, acutely lack comprehensive, high-quality weather data, with the biggest gap continuing to be the atmosphere. As part of a proprietary R&D effort, we navigated the first-ever balloon-deployed dropsondes directly into the storm. ?? Here’s more on the miniaturized tech (mini parachutes included), as well as our AI forecasting results ?? https://lnkd.in/g2N6GRB2

We wrapped an incredible WindBorne Systems offsite last week at Tah Mah Lah, one of the greenest homes in America, in Portola Valley, Calif. From sharing 2025 plans, to celebrating nearly 2,000 balloon launches and AI forecasting gains, our bicoastal team of 40 enjoyed a packed two days. To cap it off, our investors at Khosla Ventures, Footwork, and Pear VC came to watch a launch at our HQ over pizza. ?? ??

“In the increasingly competitive space, WindBorne continues to lead in AI weather prediction in key benchmarks set up by government weather models. Armed with a Series A of $15 million led by Khosla Ventures, they want to further work on the model, expand the technical team and launch more balloons.” The Hindustan Times' Shweta Taneja came to WindBorne Systems see our recent TECH WEEK by a16z balloon launch. ?? Here’s her deep dive that covers our vision (which we call “Atlas”) to comprehensively observe the atmosphere, why our self-flying, long-duration balloons are so sustainable, and what’s coming next to our AI forecasting suite. ????? https://lnkd.in/gvMpiV9G

We’ve launched more than a dozen balloons from one of our newest permanent launch sites in at the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD)'s HQ in Nairobi. ?????? A local school joined for a recent launch, which is part of our broader work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve weather observations over sub-Saharan Africa, especially during this fall’s shorter rainy season. ??????

WindBorne balloons have officially traversed our atmosphere for 20+ years of total cumulative flight, gathering critical and otherwise unreached data around the globe. Some notable missions ??: ·Gathering profiles in Hurricane Milton via balloon-dispatched dropsondes ·Conducting the largest-ever atmospheric campaign in the Arctic, advancing scientific understanding of the relationship between sea ice formation/melting and arctic cyclones ·Working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to expand sub-Saharan weather observations ·Launching across three continents, including permanent sites in Cabo Verde, Guam, South Korea, Kenya, New York, and California Ultimately, better weather and climate forecasting hinges on better data. We’re grateful for incredible partners such as NOAA: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, United States Air Force, US Navy, Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), and others who continue to accelerate our efforts to help improve planetary understanding for all. ??

Hurricane Milton underwent one of the most extreme versions of rapid intensification imaginable. While models forecast it would strengthen, they failed to grasp just how much and just how fast that would happen. That shows their limits, and raises a new question that will drive research in the coming years: Is the probability of extreme rapid intensification shifting as the planet warms? It’s no small task. By definition, rapid intensification happens over a very short period of time, and it’s driven by localized conditions in the ocean and atmosphere that can turn storms like Milton into monsters. Models, of course, are only as good as the data that goes into them. And that's led the National Weather Service to seek out novel and better forms of information about the ocean and atmosphere. While the government has traditionally done most of its own data-gathering, it's starting to turn toward companies with unique offerings. They include WindBorne Systems and its unique weather balloons capable of capturing profiles of the atmosphere and Saildrone, which has ocean-faring drones that go into the heart of storms. (The data they capture is invaluable but the video they capture is truly something else. There's footage in the story you should watch.) Tampa may have escaped the worst with Milton. But with more people living on the coasts and climate change heating the oceans that supercharge storms, improving forecasts has never been more vital.