It seems like I can only set the local weather for a reporting station like an airport and then the local weather is only effective for a few miles around the station. Is there any way to set the weather for a large geographical region like Northern California (without having to set it for every station in Northern California)?

You can try freeware "Active Sky 1.5" from Avsim library...New Active Sky wxRE is in beta...

Don't think it'll solve the problem entirely though. We're working on it but there are limitations, I fear, imposed by the sim engine.

Greetings,First make sure you are using GLOBAL weather mode and not LOCAL mode. This takes care of making sure you get the same weather anywhere you fly to.As to the visual problems, in my experience, this is caused by the way FS incorrectly displays BROKEN cloud layers, especially 6/8 and 7/8 coverage (this is when you are within about 2000ft of the clouds and are in 3D cloud draw mode). When you are beyond ~2000ft from the clouds it will revert to "2D" or "distant" mode and your 'distant coverage' will return.The solution is to add an 'assistive' cloud layer (FEW or SCT) directly above or below the broken layer (if you have cloud layers available)... make it thick, about 2000ft. ActiveSky wxRE attempts to recognize this scenario and add assistive cloud layers when it can, but there are definitely limitations here. Continued work is in progress to make this even better![table border=0" cellspacing="30" cellpadding="0][tr][td align = "left"]Damian ClarkHiFi Simulation SoftwareDeveloper of ActiveSkyThe next-generation weather environment simulation for FS2002!http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky[/td][td]http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxresmallbanner.jpg][/td][/tr][/table://http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/ima...][/tr][/table

Thanks for your help everyone. I downloaded ActiveSky (but haven't had a chance to install it yet).