Papers › Deep Learning for Precipitation Nowcasting: A Benchmark and A New Model

Deep Learning for Precipitation Nowcasting: A Benchmark and A New Model

12 Jun 2017NeurIPS 2017 12arXiv:1706.03458archive 2025-07-28

Xingjian Shi, Zhihan Gao, Leonard Lausen, Hao Wang, Dit-yan Yeung, Wai-kin Wong, Wang-chun Woo

With the goal of making high-resolution forecasts of regional rainfall, precipitation nowcasting has become an important and fundamental technology underlying various public services ranging from rainstorm warnings to flight safety. Recently, the Convolutional LSTM (ConvLSTM) model has been shown to outperform traditional optical flow based methods for precipitation nowcasting, suggesting that deep learning models have a huge potential for solving the problem. However, the convolutional recurrence structure in ConvLSTM-based models is location-invariant while natural motion and transformation (e.g., rotation) are location-variant in general. Furthermore, since deep-learning-based precipitation nowcasting is a newly emerging area, clear evaluation protocols have not yet been established. To address these problems, we propose both a new model and a benchmark for precipitation nowcasting. Specifically, we go beyond ConvLSTM and propose the Trajectory GRU (TrajGRU) model that can actively learn the location-variant structure for recurrent connections. Besides, we provide a benchmark that includes a real-world large-scale dataset from the Hong Kong Observatory, a new training loss, and a comprehensive evaluation protocol to facilitate future research and gauge the state of the art.

PaperPDFConference PDFCodeCode Syntology ran

In Syntology Open this paper in Syntology's Atlas, the map of the papers in Syntology's graph and their citations.

For agents, Syntology's MCP tool lists every function and class Syntology harvested from this paper and whether it ran (how to connect): get_harvested_code_for_paper(arxiv_id="1706.03458")

Code

Syntology Ran 9 of 10 code samples harvested from 2 repositories linked to this paper; 1 has no recorded run. Of those that ran: 1 ran · violated contract; 6 ran · our draft was wrong; 2 ran · fixture could not drive it.

By repository: community (archive-listed): 10 samples from 2 repositories, 9 ran. The run record, sample by sample. “Ran” means executed on a synthesized input, not that the code is correct or reproduces the paper.

Repository list and official/mentioned flags are the archive's, frozen 2025-07-28. Reachability, where shown, is from one Syntology probe window (2026-09-16 to 2026-09-18); repositories not probed show nothing. GitHub stars are not tracked.

Code Syntology ran Syntology

10 samples harvested; 9 ran; 0 honoured the contract we drafted; 1 has no recorded run. Read from Syntology's graph 2026-09-24; that is when this build read the record, not when the samples ran.

1ran · violated contract
6ran · our draft was wrong
2ran · fixture could not drive it
1unverified

Licence: 5 of the 10 samples are pointer only, meaning Syntology does not serve that copy's text. This page shows no code text for any sample; each one links to its file in the repository.

Harvested from 2 repositories linked to this paper, official or community; each sample names its own and says which. “Ran” means the sample executed on a synthesized input. It does not mean the output is correct, and nothing here reproduces the paper's results. “Honoured” and “violated” refer to a contract Syntology drafted from the code itself; “our draft was wrong” and “fixture could not drive it” are failures of Syntology's instrument, not of the code.

Each sample ends with its code_sha256, Syntology's identity for that exact code. An agent fetches the stored sample with Syntology's MCP tool get_code(code_sha256="…") (how to connect); click an identity to copy that call.

Repository labels, per sample. official repository: The archive marks this repository official for the paper. named in the paper: The archive records that the paper mentions this repository; it is not marked official. community (archive-listed): In the archive's code links for this paper, not marked official and not recorded as mentioned in the paper. found in paper text by Syntology: Syntology found this repository in the paper's own text; whether it is the authors' implementation is not asserted. community: Not in the archive's code links for this paper; a community repository Syntology harvested. Samples from a repository marked official are listed first. Licence labels name the repository's licence as recorded at harvest. “Pointer only” means Syntology does not serve that copy's text, for one of four reasons: no licence file was found; the licence was not identified; the licence is recorded as permissive but that copy's record is not marked cleared; or the licence is outside the permissive list Syntology serves text under (MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD and similar). Some licences outside that list permit redistribution, such as WTFPL, and GPL-3.0 under its conditions; they are simply not on the list. Hover a licence label for the reason. File links open the file on GitHub at the default branch, which may have changed since the harvest.

conv2_act tianhai123/conv-gru/encoder.py community (archive-listed) ran · our draft was wrong no licence file found · pointer only · bcf4a8730082002b · report
conv2_act tianhai123/conv-gru/forecaster.py community (archive-listed) ran · our draft was wrong no licence file found · pointer only · 5cc4268bd2c61345 · report
deconv2_act tianhai123/conv-gru/forecaster.py community (archive-listed) ran · our draft was wrong no licence file found · pointer only · a49a94bd61a1651f · report
downsmaple tianhai123/conv-gru/encoder.py community (archive-listed) ran · our draft was wrong no licence file found · pointer only · 9096c0546286d0c1 · report
encode_month sxjscience/HKO-7/nowcasting/hko_iterator.py community (archive-listed) ran · violated contract fingerprinted MIT (permissive) · 6f090d3364df919e · report
frame_skip_reshape sxjscience/HKO-7/experiments/hko/hko_main.py community (archive-listed) ran · fixture could not drive it fingerprinted MIT (permissive) · d7f985f69ed8fefd · report
frame_skip_reshape_back sxjscience/HKO-7/experiments/hko/hko_main.py community (archive-listed) ran · fixture could not drive it fingerprinted MIT (permissive) · 594f31479418e41f · report
get_base_dir sxjscience/HKO-7/experiments/hko/hko_main.py community (archive-listed) ran · our draft was wrong MIT (permissive) · 69a7ad6774e73b5c · report
upsmaple tianhai123/conv-gru/forecaster.py community (archive-listed) ran · our draft was wrong no licence file found · pointer only · 5ec5fba82b1decd8 · report
decode_month sxjscience/HKO-7/nowcasting/hko_iterator.py community (archive-listed) unverified MIT (permissive) · cf999c562f67173a · report

Tasks

Optical Flow EstimationVideo Prediction

Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28

TaskDatasetModelMetricValueRank at snapshotLeaderboardReport
Video Prediction KTH TrajGRU Cond 10 #27 of 31 Archive leaderboard report
Video Prediction KTH TrajGRU PSNR 26.97 #27 of 31 Archive leaderboard report
Video Prediction KTH TrajGRU Pred 20 #27 of 31 Archive leaderboard report
Video Prediction KTH TrajGRU SSIM 0.790 #27 of 31 Archive leaderboard report

Ranks are positions in the archive's leaderboards as they stood at the 2025-07-28 snapshot. Results published since then are not among these rows, so a rank here is not a current standing.

Methods

ConvLSTMConvolutionGRULSTMSigmoid ActivationTanh Activation

Report a problem or propose a change · a person checks every report against the paper or source before anything changes; decisions are listed on /corrections