On November 12, 1970, the Bhola cyclone slammed into the coast of what was then East Pakistan. The storm brought maximum sustained wind speeds of 130 miles per hour (205 kilometers per hour) and a 35-foot (10.5-meter) storm surge, killing an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 people. Today, the Bhola cyclone remains the deadliest tropical storm on record. But if it had struck a decade later, it might not have been so devastating. Weather forecasting changed dramatically in the 1970s as meteorologists adopted physics-based computer models that improved storm prediction. With the rise of AI, forecasting is evolving again —but this time, experts worry the new models may be less reliable when it comes to predicting unprecedented weather events. Researchers are calling this the “gray swan” problem. Gray swan weather extremes are physically plausible but so rare that they are poorly represented in training datasets. The trouble is, climate change is leading to more first-of-their-kind weather extremes.…