Forecast lead time and the timing of crew deployment for weather-driven power outages using AI weather models
arXiv:2610.20918v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Utilities request mutual aid crews to restore power after severe storms, and requesting early secures more crews but relies on less accurate forecasts. We examined how forecast lead time affects the value of outage predictions for crew deployment, using operational forecasts from two AI weather models, GraphCast and FourCastNet, to predict outage occurrence for counties across the contiguous United States 24 to 120 hours ahead. Forecasts were ev…