I went for a walk earlier to check the weather. I've been looking for a situation here where I could see good clouds in the distance when I was under clear skies at home. When I find this, I'm going to run a test in AS2012 SP1, then install SP2 beta and test that as well for a comparison.

 

i was under a few high clouds here, and to the SSE there was a really good cloud buildup, stratus/cumulus and it looked to be fairly well overcast. Ok, I can use this...

 

Except when I loaded AS2012, everything in that direction was clear. There were clouds reported some distance away to the southwest, and some to the northwest. Ok, that can't be right...

 

Except that it was. I loaded Skyvector.com to check the actual METARs. Almost every station reported CLR, especially everything to my SSE up to 100 nm away.

 

It's kinda hard to test the weather in FSX and AS2012 when what the METARs report doesn't match what the Mark II eyeball sees. <sigh>

 

Test deferred for another day.

 

Hook

Really?

 

What I want is when a single rain drop hits my roof, I want a single drop of rain to hit my roof in FS while using TileProxy and a weather program. Then I'll know "It's as Real as it Gets."

Yes, but you have always been picky JIm!

 

 

Vic

I guess the weather is only as good as the data.

Hook, you need to remember how METARs are put together.

 

When I did my met class (am a certified MET observer) the basics are....mentally divide the sky you see in 8 squares, look up and identify the group of clouds at roughly the same height...for example, you see Cumulus clouds at roughly 4000ft.

 

Then again, mentally, move them all together and ascertain how many of the 8 squares of sky do they fill....here is your answer. In the past, we would say 3/8 CU at 4000, nowadays it has changed to an even more imprecise (in my opinion) method of saying SCT040.

 

But this representation of the weather will NEVER tell you where the clouds are, and this is true for real life as well.

Will,

 

For my knowledge: how do the automatic stations determine cloud coverage?

The problem was, I saw a LOT of clouds in that direction while every station in that entire sector reported CLR. The clouds did not look close, maybe as much as 50 nm away, but that part of the sky was totally covered. I'm talking about covering an arc of 20 degrees, maybe more.

 

The only thing I can think of is that the actual clouds were over an area that didn't have a station. There are areas of sparse station coverage in that direction (east of Dallas).

 

Larry Hooikins

Will,

 

For my knowledge: how do the automatic stations determine cloud coverage?

 

Jim, it depends on teh equipment, generally speaking, the only trustworthy information you get frm them are temperature, winds, humidity, baro pressure.

 

For clouds, it depends what equipment you have...the more complex (read expensive) ones have beams that capture reflection when they hit clouds, and they can be notoriously inaccurate.

 

For example, the beams may miss scattered clouds altogether and report as SKC, or hit a layer of cloud that offers little or no feedback and again not report it at all.

 

Nothing beats the Mk1 eyeball.

 

I just loaded AS2012 and used historical weather from 17:45 central time, airfield TX34 (near Bonham, F00 doesn't show in AS2012, TX34 is just south of there but the real TX34 is somewhere west of Dallas. Please don't fix this.)

 

Ok, I figured, maybe the clouds were farther away than I thought. So I checked.

 

The nearest clouds reported were around the Houston area, 170 to 220 nm away. I don't think what I saw could have been that far off.

 

Hook

What is the closest actual weather station? Now, not airport, because not every airport is a station.

CLR only means no clouds below 12'000 ft (US) or 10k (CAN). Maybe the clouds were a bit higher.

 

Regards

Hirschi

I still remember the time when I did a sim flight 80 miles to the west and when I was half way there I flew into clouds and rain (no rain at home or home airfield at the time. A half hour later (real world) it started raining here at home. That's as real as it can get.

 

Garbage in (to your fave Active Sky program) = garbage out (from your Active Sky program).

What is the closest actual weather station? Now, not airport, because not every airport is a station.

 

I guess the best way to show you is for you to load up skyvector.com, type F00 into the search box, and look to the SSE. That's Foxtrot Zero Zero. You should see all the weather stations. You could also load up historical weather as I described above and check it in AS2012, but in that case use TX34.

 

CLR only means no clouds below 12'000 ft (US) or 10k (CAN). Maybe the clouds were a bit higher.

 

That's not impossible. But if the clouds were all above 12000 feet, it still looked like overcast from where I was standing.

 

I still remember the time when I did a sim flight 80 miles to the west and when I was half way there I flew into clouds and rain (no rain at home or home airfield at the time. A half hour later (real world) it started raining here at home. That's as real as it can get.

 

I once flew through rain when flying to my home airport (4.5 nm from my house as the crow flies). Just before I landed, the rain stopped. After the flight I asked my wife is it was raining out. "No." A few minutes later, the rain started. I was impressed.

 

Hook

CLR only means no clouds below 12'000 ft (US) or 10k (CAN). Maybe the clouds were a bit higher.

 

Regards

Hirschi

 

That is true for automated weather stations, or partially automated weather stations when they are on automated reporting (such as overnight). Clouds above 12,000 ft are measured, estimated, and reported by other sources. Major airports (commercial traffic) and most AFB are manned and use full reporting.

That is true for automated weather stations, or partially automated weather stations when they are on automated reporting (such as overnight).

CLR means at least partially automatically generated weather. SKC is the same but indicating a human generated report.

But that doesn't means, that the clouds could not have been above 12k AGL and therefore the CLR message although clouds were visible.

 

Regards

Hirschi