Google Research and DeepMind are releasing WeatherNext 3, a weather model that skips traditional physics simulations and learns directly from real-time satellite data. It produces hourly forecasts at up to five-kilometer resolution, five times more detailed than its predecessor. Google says regions in Africa, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific that have lacked accurate forecasts should see the biggest gains.

It’s faster and more accurate, especially when it comes to predicting rain.

WeatherNext 3 is the latest wave of a sea change in meteorology brought out by deep learning techniques. Google says it will start feeding into weather information users see in…