Fina Impacting Australia, 95B Heading Into the Indian Ocean: AI Models Discussion 11-21-2025
Cyclone Fina is churning right along the coast of Australia this morning, with intensity assessed at 70 knots. Models show it continuing to track to the west-southwest in the general vicinity of Darwin, which will likely experience hurricane conditions. Google DeepMind ensemble shows some short-term intensification if it can stay offshore (Figure 1).
Interestingly, this is a case where DeepMind actually missed some of the recent intensification in its earlier forecasts, and has had to correct stronger, as seen in the intensity trend plot from Tomer Burg (Figure 2).
Some of this likely stems from the fact that DeepMind has also corrected towards a track further west, keeping the TC offshore longer (Figure 3). This is more in line with some of the other AI forecasts that we discussed in the blog post on 11/18/25.
The storm will generally be moving parallel to the coast of Australia for a while before a final landfall in a relatively unpopulated stretch of Western Australia. Further intensification is possible due to the very warm waters, although some northerly shear may prove to be a challenge at times (Figure 4).
Elsewhere, activity is picking up near Southeast Asia as a strong MJO pulse moves through the region. Invest 95B is currently located near Malaysia, and will be moving out into the Bay of Bengal. Some DeepMind ensemble members show intensification into a strong cyclone, while others show less development (Figure 5). There also seem to be some members that develop a competing, weaker low near Sri Lanka.
Looking at the fields from individual AI models, we see examples of both solutions. FourCastNet-v3 (Figure 6) has a small low near the southern tip of India, but turns 95B into a strong cyclone in the Bay of Bengal by next weekend. On the other hand, GraphCast (Figure 7) just shows the weak system near Sri Lanka. Such uncertainty is common in the early stages of developing systems, so we’ll see how things trend over the next week or so.
