Weather problems ?

[MarkW 1,491]

I posted this in the general forum but no interest. Any ideas?Last night while flying into KSDF I pulled in the Wx from Serverinfo (flying using VATSIM weather). Weather indicated 3/4 NM of visability and snow. When I was on approach I was able to see the runway from 8 NM and their was no snow at all. I then tried to use Active Sky...same indicated weather and same result on the screen.Any ideas why this is happening....I am using FS9. I have the clouds set up per the optimization guides on this forum.By the way I just now flew if FS2002 to KBUF, zero vis and it showed just fine using Vatsim weather so I think this is a FS9 issue.Mark.

[Guest MB327]

FS9 can do some odd things with weather. Most of the add-on weather programs/feeds recommend clearing all weather in FS9 before feeding external weather. You might want to try that. If you have a fully registered copy of FSUIPC, there is an option to simply click a button on the "About" page of FSUIPC that will clear out all weather. Otherwise, I believe you need to do that from the FS9 Weather menu. Also, make sure that FS9 is set to "User defined weather" and the "rate of change" slider is set to zero. Both of those options are on the World/Weather menu. When using ActiveSky or FSMeteo or FS9 for your weather feed and using Squawkbox (SB), be sure you go to the SB Options menu and check the option to "Ignore Real World Weather". Otherwise you will have conflicting weather data hitting FS9 and there is no telling what you end up with.One more variable that could be affecting you is the aircraft. Some add-on aircraft prevent you from seeing precipitation from within the cockpit.

[Guest mkuebeler]

>When using ActiveSky or FSMeteo or FS9 for your weather feed>and using Squawkbox (SB), be sure you go to the SB Options>menu and check the option to "Ignore Real World Weather". >Otherwise you will have conflicting weather data hitting FS9>and there is no telling what you end up with.At what point in the connection process should you start ActiveSky? When flying offline I start a flight with the clear weather theme and alt-tab out to the desktop to start AS2004, which then sets the weather. Should I start AS2004 before or after I have connected to VATSIM?Thanks

[Guest MB327]

It really should not matter. I normally start ActiveSky right after FS9 comes up in order for it initialize while I am bringing up SBRelay, joining FS9 to SBRelay, etc. Just be sure you have the SB option checked to "ignore real world weather". If you start SB after ActiveSky and that option was not checked, I would suggest to check the option and then refresh the ActiveSky weather feed. If you think something looks funky with your wx, clear the wx in FS9 and refresh ActiveSky again. SB will remember each of the options via it's ini file so each time you open SB you will have the same setup you left it with on your last flight.

[Guest mkuebeler]

Thank you. I was not aware of that "ignore RW weather" option before reading this thread. Hey, how about adding a third-party weather software lesson to the PRC basic course? I started AS2004 after starting SB Relay/SB, with plane positioned on ramp, but before connecting to VATSIM. I usually just start with the clear weather theme, but also did the clear wx function in FSUIPC. At first AS set some weather that resembled the VATSIM METAR, with 3/4 sm vis but it cleared to 10sm vis in about 30 seconds! I went back to AS2004 and hit the refresh button, and saw a message that it was also downloading weather from VATSIM, and after that had some lovely 1 1/4 sm vis in mist and light snow which stuck. So I guess doing a refresh once everything is running and you're connected seems to be a good idea. Thanks again, VATSIM is a blast!