Aurora 1.5: Extending open foundation models for weather and Earth-system applications
TL;DR
Microsoft Research has introduced Aurora 1.5, an update to its open Earth-system foundation model for weather and climate applications. It adds 22 weather variables, hourly forecasting, and probabilistic ensemble forecasts. The model is open source on GitHub, with checkpoints on Hugging Face. Microsoft also frames Aurora 1.5 as part of Microsoft Weather, Foundry, and Planetary Computer Pro workflows.
Nauti's Take
Strong signal, but this is not a neutral research note. Microsoft brings real substance: open weights, more variables, ensemble uncertainty, and concrete benchmarks against ECMWF.
At the same time, the post clearly feeds an Azure and enterprise story. For AInauten, Aurora 1.5 is worth watching, but the key question is how well independent weather services, energy operators, and research teams can reproduce the results outside Microsoft’s own stack.
Briefingshow
Weather AI becomes useful when it handles uncertainty, short time steps, and variables that operators actually need. Aurora 1.5 moves in that direction: from demo forecasting toward energy, transport, agriculture, and risk-planning use cases. The open release helps researchers test the claims, while Microsoft is clearly preparing the enterprise path.
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