Abstract
Machine learning-based weather prediction (MLWP) has achieved strong performance in global weather forecasting. Recent Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelation (HEALPix)-based methods use the HEALPix (HP) grid to avoid area distortion near the poles of conventional latitude-longitude (LL) grids. However, existing HP-based approaches often use pointwise mapping methods and process HP pixels within separate base faces or local windows. Consequently, the mapping may introduce reconstruction errors and cross-face communication depends on handcrafted boundary handling or shifted windows. We propose the Spherical Spiral Scanning Network (S$^3$N) to address both limitations. First, L2Proj provides a bidirectional method for mapping atmospheric fields between the LL and HP grids through an $L^2$ projection of their continuous finite-element representations. Second, the Attention-Guided Quad-Spiral State-Space Scanning (AQSS) block uses cross-latitude attention to guide selective state-space updates along four global pole-to-pole spiral paths. This design enables continuous information propagation across HP base-face boundaries without additional boundary-processing mechanisms. Experiments show that S$^3$N achieves better results at 4-, 7-, and 10-day lead times, and exhibits slower error growth in long-range forecasting.
Keywords
Publication details
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Cite this article
APA 7
Yan, F., Hui, C., Lin, W., Zhu, H., Jiang, F., Kung, S. Y., & Zhang, W. (2026). S$^3$N: A Spherical Spiral Scanning Network for Weather Forecasting. https://omanscience.com/en/articles/s-3-n-a-spherical-spiral-scanning-network-for-weather-forecasting
MLA 9
Yan, Fan, et al. "S$^3$N: A Spherical Spiral Scanning Network for Weather Forecasting." https://omanscience.com/en/articles/s-3-n-a-spherical-spiral-scanning-network-for-weather-forecasting.
Chicago (author–date)
Yan, Fan, Chen Hui, Weisi Lin, Haiqi Zhu, Feng Jiang, Sun-Yuan Kung, and Wei Zhang. 2026. "S$^3$N: A Spherical Spiral Scanning Network for Weather Forecasting." https://omanscience.com/en/articles/s-3-n-a-spherical-spiral-scanning-network-for-weather-forecasting.
Harvard
Yan, F., Hui, C., Lin, W., Zhu, H., Jiang, F., Kung, S. Y. and Zhang, W. (2026) 'S$^3$N: A Spherical Spiral Scanning Network for Weather Forecasting', Available at: https://omanscience.com/en/articles/s-3-n-a-spherical-spiral-scanning-network-for-weather-forecasting.
Vancouver
Yan F, Hui C, Lin W, Zhu H, Jiang F, Kung SY, et al. S$^3$N: A Spherical Spiral Scanning Network for Weather Forecasting. https://omanscience.com/en/articles/s-3-n-a-spherical-spiral-scanning-network-for-weather-forecasting
IEEE
F. Yan, C. Hui, W. Lin, H. Zhu, F. Jiang, S. Y. Kung, and W. Zhang, "S$^3$N: A Spherical Spiral Scanning Network for Weather Forecasting," https://omanscience.com/en/articles/s-3-n-a-spherical-spiral-scanning-network-for-weather-forecasting.