What happened
On 3 September 2026 Google DeepMind and Google Research launched WeatherNext 3, an hourly, satellite-driven global weather model at up to 5 km resolution, and began using it in Search, Gemini, Maps, Maps Platform, Earth Engine, and Cloud. The model ingests live geostationary satellite mosaics and station observations rather than lagged numerical-weather-prediction analyses. Google reported up to 50% more accurate precipitation forecasts at day-plus leads and cited independent live evaluations by Brightband. This is a product-generation upgrade of the WeatherNext line, scored separately from the WeatherNext 2 consumer deployment and the WeatherNext Cyclones Nature paper.