AlphaPre: Amplitude-Phase Disentanglement Model for Precipitation Nowcasting

Precipitation nowcasting involves using current radar observation sequences to predict future radar sequences and determine future precipitation distribution, which is crucial for disaster warning, traffic planning, and agricultural production. Despite numerous advancements, challenges persist in accurately predicting both the location and intensity of precipitation, as these factors are often interdependent, with complex atmospheric dynamics and moisture distribution causing position and intensity changes to be intricately coupled. Inspired by the fact that in the frequency domain, phase variations are shown to correspond to changes in the position of precipitation, while amplitude variations are linked to intensity changes, we propose an amplitude-phase disentanglement model called AlphaPre, which separately learn the position and intensity changes of precipitation. AlphaPre comprises three key components: a phase network, an amplitude network, and an AlphaMixer. The phase network captures positional changes by learning phase variations, while the amplitude network models intensity changes by alternating between the frequency and spatial domains. The AlphaMixer then integrates these components to produce a refined precipitation forecast. Extensive experiments on four datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and superiority of our method over state-of-the-art approaches.