glu
Studio
Join the waitlist
All comparisons
By scene · 25 models

Best AI image generator for storms and weather

25 models compared (November 2026)

Best for storms and weather: Qwen Image 3.0 Pro (7.7 out of 10), ahead of Qwen Image 3.0 and Seedream 4.5, from our scores for prompt adherence, realism and film look.

We sent the same prompt, word for word, to the 25 best-ranked AI image models and put every result side by side. One image each, no retouching, no picking the best of several. Each card shows the model, its maker and its benchmark score.

The prompt

Wide shot from behind a storm chasers' pickup on a gravel farm road, the truck, a lone white farmhouse and a massive wedge tornado stacked through the centre of the frame. Two chasers stand in the truck bed: a woman in her forties in a soaked olive rain shell holding a plain handheld radar unit with its screen facing away from camera, and a man in his thirties bracing against the cab, hair whipped sideways, both still in awe. The funnel churns with debris over the wheat. The key is a yellow-green light breaking under the shelf cloud from the west, flat and eerie at 4500K, lighting the clapboard and the wheat while the storm above is near black, 8:1. Sony Venice 2, Zeiss Supreme Prime 21mm at T5.6, deep focus, rain streaks blurred at a 180-degree shutter, sickly green and slate grade, light grain, a frame from a disaster film shot on location. The truck has plain bodywork, no badges or decals, and an empty rear licence-plate recess. Real mud and wet fabric, no CGI look. No text, no logos, no watermarks.

Shape
16:9, or the nearest a model offers
Made
Models
25
How we ran it and ranked it

Every model got the prompt exactly as written above. Where a model can rewrite or expand a prompt before it draws, that was switched off, so each one worked from the same words. We made one image per model at 16:9; a model that cannot make 16:9 made its nearest shape, and its picture is trimmed slightly at the edges to fill the frame. Where a model drew black cinema bars into its picture, the bars are cut off for display. Nothing was retouched or chosen from several tries. A model that failed was tried once more; if it failed again, its card says so and why.

The order is the models' benchmark rank, not our opinion: their score in the Artificial Analysis text-to-image arena (human preference Elo, checked 8 November 2026), or, for a model Artificial Analysis does not score, the Arena text-to-image leaderboard (checked 6 November 2026). The two boards use different scales, so each score is placed by the share of its own board it beats. A model sold under two names is one model, shown once under both.

Only models whose pictures may be used commercially are included.

The answer at the top and the notes under What we noticed come from our own scores, not the benchmark. Each picture was scored 1 to 10 on prompt adherence, realism and film look, and the scores were checked by an independent cross-review.

The 25 results

Ranked by benchmark. Select a picture to see it full size, then use the arrows or your arrow keys to compare.

  1. #1

    Nano Banana 2

    · Google· AA Elo 1142
  2. #2

    Muse Image

    · Meta· AA Elo 1128
  3. #3

    Nano Banana Pro

    · Google· AA Elo 1119
  4. #4

    Qwen Image 3.0 Pro

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 1095
  5. #5

    Qwen Image 3.0

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 1073
  6. #6

    FLUX.3 Klein

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1043
  7. #7

    FIBO 2.0

    · Bria· AA Elo 1039
  8. #8

    Seedream 4.5

    · ByteDance· AA Elo 1030
  9. #9

    FLUX.2 [flex]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1028
  10. #10

    Recraft V4.1 Utility

    · Recraft· AA Elo 1028
  11. #11

    Luma Uni-1 Max

    · Luma AI· AA Elo 1026
  12. #12

    Grok Imagine Image

    · xAI· AA Elo 1024
  13. #13

    FLUX.2 [max]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1021
  14. #14

    Seedream 5.0 Lite

    · ByteDance· AA Elo 1019
  15. #15

    Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro

    · Recraft· AA Elo 1018
  16. #16

    Wan 2.6

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 1018
  17. #17

    FLUX.2 [pro]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1003
  18. #18

    FLUX.2 [dev]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1000
  19. #19

    FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 996
  20. #20

    Luma Uni-1

    · Luma AI· AA Elo 994
  21. #21

    Recraft V4.1 Pro

    · Recraft· Arena 1132
  22. #22

    FLUX.2 [dev] Flash

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 989
  23. #23

    HunyuanImage 3.0 Instruct

    · Tencent· AA Elo 988
  24. #24

    Wan 2.7 Image

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 988
  25. #25

    Cosmos 3 Super

    · NVIDIA· AA Elo 987

What we noticed

Our read of these pictures. It's one image per model, so treat it as a snapshot, not a verdict.

  • Strongest: Qwen Image 3.0 Pro. Weakest: Wan 2.6.

    Qwen Image 3.0 Pro is closest to the brief: a massive wedge-like funnel, a near-black storm over lit wheat and clapboard, and a man bracing on the cab. The tailgate has a blank plate rather than an empty recess, and the radar screen is partly visible. Wan 2.6 breaks the framing: the truck is cropped to the right edge, the funnel sits on a flat saucer-like base, the gravel road glows lime, and the farmhouse roof looks already wrecked.

  • Wedge or rope: how big the tornado is

    The prompt asks for a massive wedge. Qwen Image 3.0 Pro, Qwen Image 3.0 and Wan 2.7 Image give a broad, churning funnel that fills much of the sky. Nano Banana 2 gives a medium cone, off-centre, under a large dark base. Muse Image, Recraft V4.1 Pro, Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro and Seedream 5.0 Lite draw a narrower cone or rope under a handsome shelf cloud, which looks real but is smaller than the brief.

  • The radar unit and the camera position

    The brief says the radar screen faces away from the camera and the shot is from behind the truck. FLUX.3 Klein and Muse Image show the radar's lit screen to the viewer. Grok Imagine Image gets the screen facing away, but both chasers face the camera. Nano Banana 2, Seedream 4.5, HunyuanImage 3.0 Instruct and Cosmos 3 Super swing the camera round to the side, and Luma Uni-1 becomes a close-up of a man staring down the lens.

  • Plain truck, empty plate recess

    Several models added what was ruled out. Nano Banana 2 puts an oval badge on the front wall of the bed, and Qwen Image 3.0 Pro, Qwen Image 3.0 and Cosmos 3 Super show a licence plate. FLUX.2 [pro] keeps the bodywork clean with a blank recess, as asked. FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo also adds forked lightning that nobody asked for.

  • Light and grade

    The 4500K green-yellow light under the cloud is the hardest part to hold. Luma Uni-1 Max and FLUX.2 [dev] push the whole frame sickly green, which fits the grade but flattens the 8:1 contrast. Muse Image and Recraft V4.1 Pro keep a warm band at the horizon against dark cloud, though Recraft V4.1 Pro drifts toward teal and gold rather than green and slate.

See how these models rank across all 10 scenes

Head to heads featuring these models

Two of the models above on the same film scenes, judged pair by pair.

Other scenes

The same 25 models on another film shot.

Join the waitlist

Sign in once. If you don't have an invite yet, that puts you on the waitlist, and we'll email you when your invite is ready. For people 18 or over.

Join the waitlist

Sold under more than one name, shown once: Nano Banana 2 (Nano Banana 2, Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview); Nano Banana Pro (Nano Banana Pro, Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview).