Using natural-language processing to produce weather forecasts

Improved numerical weather prediction simulations have led weather services to examine how and where human forecasters add value to forecast production. The Forecast Production Assistant (FPA) was developed with that in mind. The authors discuss the Forecast Generator (FOG), the first application developed on the FPA. FOG is a bilingual report generator that produces routine and special purpose forecast directly from the FPA´s graphical weather predictions. Using rules and a natural-language generator, FOG converts weather maps into forecast text. The natural-language issues involved are relevant to anyone designing a similar system.<>