Extreme Weather Is the New Normal—Here’s How Advanced Forecasting Helps You Stay Ahead
From deadly floods and tornado outbreaks to record-breaking heatwaves, the summer of 2025 has made one thing clear: extreme weather is no longer the exception—it’s the rule. Across the U.S., communities are grappling with weather events that are more intense, more frequent, and more disruptive than ever before. These events don’t just pose public safety risks—they also challenge the core operations of energy markets, electric utilities, and emergency management agencies.
As the weather grows more volatile, traditional forecasting methods are struggling to keep up. That’s why advanced, high-resolution weather models with long lead times are becoming indispensable tools for decision-makers. Accurate forecasting across all time horizons—from the next few hours to multiple seasons ahead—is key to building resilience, minimizing losses, and optimizing operations in this new climate reality.
In Summary:
- Extreme weather is escalating in frequency and severity across the U.S., disrupting operations for energy markets, electric utilities, and emergency management agencies.
- Accurate weather forecasting across all time horizons—from hours to years—is critical for proactive planning, risk mitigation, and operational efficiency.
- Climavision’s forecasting suite includes Horizon AI HIRES (0–7 days), Horizon AI Point and Global (1–15 days), and Horizon AI S2S (1 month–2 years), delivering precision and lead time not available in traditional public models.
- Recent events like flash floods, derechos, and heatwaves highlight where high-resolution, long-range forecasts could have provided earlier warning, improved crew staging, and supported more confident trading and emergency planning.
- Advanced weather intelligence is no longer optional—it’s a strategic asset for building resilience and staying ahead of increasingly volatile weather conditions.
What Is Extreme Weather?
Extreme weather refers to events that significantly deviate from historical averages and cause substantial societal, environmental, or economic disruption. These include heatwaves, flash floods, hurricanes, derechos, severe thunderstorms, wildfires, snowstorms, and polar outbreaks.
What’s changing is the frequency, magnitude, and geographic reach of these events. For example, the Central U.S. was recently battered by a derecho with wind speeds exceeding 100 mph, just weeks after Central Texas experienced catastrophic flash flooding. A week later, a searing heat dome parked over the Eastern U.S., pushing temperatures above 100°F for millions and straining regional power grids.
The science is clear: a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and energy, increasing the likelihood of rapid intensification and widespread impact. In short, extreme is becoming the norm—and operational planning must evolve accordingly.
The Growing Impact of Extreme Weather
Energy Traders
In energy markets, weather is the largest driver of demand and supply volatility. A sudden heatwave can send demand surging while cloud cover or low wind reduces renewable generation, impacting both real-time operations and forward price curves. Without accurate forecasts, traders are exposed to greater risk and missed opportunities for arbitrage and hedging.
Electric Utilities
For electric utilities, extreme weather means more than higher peak demand. It also translates into increased equipment failure, wildfire risk, vegetation management challenges, and outage restoration logistics. Crews need to be deployed proactively, assets need to be hardened, and maintenance must be scheduled around potential weather disruptions.
Government & Emergency Agencies
Emergency managers face mounting pressure to respond quickly and decisively to severe weather threats. Delayed warnings or underestimated events can lead to loss of life, property damage, and reputational harm. Agencies need both short-term visibility and long-range situational awareness to make smart decisions about evacuations, resource allocation, and infrastructure protection.
Why Forecasting Across All Time Horizons Matters
To meet these evolving challenges, organizations need precise, reliable forecasts tailored to every time scale. Climavision’s advanced suite of models delivers actionable insights from hours to years ahead, using a unique combination of AI, proprietary radar data, and high-resolution numerical weather prediction.
Now to 7 Days: Horizon AI HIRES + Radar as a Service (RaaS)
Horizon AI HIRES is a high-resolution, convection-permitting model that provides detailed forecasts out to 7 days—a significantly longer range than most public high-resolution models, which typically only cover 1–3 days. This extended visibility is crucial for severe weather preparedness.
When paired with our proprietary Radar as a Service (RaaS) network, HIRES offers unmatched granularity in detecting and forecasting thunderstorms, tornadoes, hail, and flash flooding—especially in areas with poor public radar coverage. Utilities and emergency responders can use this data to position resources earlier and issue warnings with greater confidence.
1 to 15 Days: Horizon AI Point + Horizon AI Global
For mid-range planning, Horizon AI Point delivers site-specific weather forecasts for the next 15 days—providing energy traders, plant operators, and utility forecasters with detailed outlooks tailored to their exact locations. Whether you’re managing load curves, optimizing renewable assets, or planning demand-side response, Point gives you the precision you need.
Horizon AI Global complements this with regional to global weather outlooks over the same timeframe. Built for broader operations, fuel planning, and large-scale risk assessments, it captures synoptic patterns that impact energy trading markets and large utility territories.
1 Month to 2 Years: Horizon AI S2S
For long-range strategic planning, Horizon AI S2S (Subseasonal to Seasonal) fills a critical forecasting gap between weather and climate. Covering lead times from 30 days out to 2 years, S2S uses AI-trained pattern recognition and ensemble prediction to generate probabilistic forecasts of temperature, precipitation, and risk indices.
This capability is essential for budget planning, seasonal load forecasting, commodity hedging, infrastructure resilience assessments, and long-term emergency preparedness. While seasonal forecasts have historically carried high uncertainty, Climavision’s AI-enhanced S2S model significantly improves confidence at these extended ranges.
How Advanced Forecasting Changes Outcomes
While recent extreme weather events have exposed gaps in preparation and response across sectors, they’ve also highlighted where advanced forecasting could make a critical difference.
- Energy Trading: Widespread heat across the Eastern U.S. led to sharp demand surges and market volatility. With longer-range, site-specific forecasts from tools like Horizon AI Point and Global, traders can gain early insights into potential demand anomalies and renewable generation variability—enabling better hedging, bid strategies, and risk mitigation.
- Utilities: The June derecho knocked out power to tens of thousands across the Midwest. If high-resolution, 7-day forecasts like Horizon AI HIRES were used, utilities could have had earlier visibility into storm tracks and wind threats—allowing for pre-positioning of crews, accelerated asset protection, and reduced restoration times.
- Government Agencies: Catastrophic flash flooding in Central Texas demonstrated how quickly conditions can escalate. Tools like RaaS and HIRES could support earlier flood alerts, more confident decision-making, and life-saving lead time for evacuations.
Building Resilience with Forecasting Intelligence
Extreme weather is accelerating—and so must our tools to understand and respond to it. With greater clarity across the full-time horizon, organizations can improve operational efficiency, reduce financial risk, and protect lives and infrastructure.
Climavision’s forecasting suite offers more than just weather models—it delivers a strategic advantage. Whether you’re trading megawatts, restoring power, or coordinating emergency response, our insights help you stay one step ahead of the next extreme event.
Ready to see what better forecasting can do for your organization? Contact us to schedule a demo.
