FS Meteo Question

[Guest BobL]

Does anyone know where the data that Mark uses for Winds Aloft comes from? The reason I ask is that I am a rated pilot and prior to simming I do RW flight planning. Well, except for Deviation...MS hasn't emulated that yet....I've been using http://aviationweather.gov/ for my weather briefing and I find two things:1) The Winds Aloft coming into FS from Meteo aren't anywhere close to the forecast. For example, one area last weekend that I used was forecasting winds that were generally Northwest ranging from 24 kts at 16000 to 60 kts at FL340. When I got into flight, the winds coming in through Meteo were North Easterly @ 8. And this isn't the first time. It happens fairly regularly that I have an extremely wide variance between my flight planned winds and what comes in through Meteo. This has to be the product of two different databases...I'm flight planning from NOAA and he's getting his data from somewhere else. I'd like to find out where that somewhere else is so that I use the same information to flight plan with.A second, related question is that I noticed at the site above that there are Winds Aloft Stations that don't even show up in the FS Weather Map as a station. Is there a table or cfg file that can be edited to add additional weather sites?Thx for infoBobL

[bobbyjoh 11]

Hi Bob,I have been working with Marc on FSMeteo since he first started to write the program. He uses a private weather provider to supply his winds aloft, but uses the same data base as you for the metars. We have looking at the aloft winds sources for some time. The NOAA winds aloft servers have not been as consistant as they should, which ActiveSky has found out. The private server that FSMeteo uses is updated about once each six hours, which does account for some differences.Marc is testing along with me a new beta version of FSMeteo which uses some new sources but they are not ready for distribution at this time. However I check the wind sources of FSMeteo against the NOAA source almost daily and at FL 250-and above, we have been running very close right now. I have not checked at lower altitudes, but will do so just for comparisons.Thanks for the info, but I think you will like the new version when it is released.Bob Johnson

[Vulcan 14]

That is welcome news Bob, I hope it comes to fruition.I also hope Damian can sort out upper winds for ActiveSky ;-)I have both programs and like them both except for the upper wind problem with ActiveSky.FS Meteo I have used since starting simming in '98 and purchased the payware version of ActiveSky when it was released, mainly for the enhanced cloud display and gradual weather changes.I am sure there is room for both Marc and Damian, best wishes to both their efforts.