Kyle, I have seen your WXR preview video and I have a question:

do you keep "Prevent thunderstorm when CB reported" on ASN selected or not?

 

This because I have found that:

 

A) if I keep it unselected as per default ASN setting, I have thunderstorms and heavy rain if "CB" is reported in the metar, even if in the metar itself no rain nor thunderstorm is reported; the ASN radar map is full of rain returns. This of course is not a realistic situation, since in the simulator it looks like the end of the world, while in real life no rain and no thunderstorms.

 

B ) If I select "Prevent thunderstorm when CB reported", I will not have thunderstorms or rain if they are not reported in the metar (where "CB" is reported), thus the situation becomes more realistic, *but* I will no more have returns on the wxr (ASN map), although there are CBs around.

 

I think that in real life, where there are CBs, even if it does not rain on the ground, it's very likely that the CBs give returns on the WXR, therefore situation B ) is unrealistic as well. In your video I see (for example around min. 4:50) that there are returns ahead and on the right of the airplane and I am curious to know if they come from keeping that option selected or not.

Thank you. 

James, I think you have reasonably summarised the options. The answer comes down to personal preference. I'm doing a lot of flying in and out of KPHX for testing and the current weather pattern is such that you get a lot of returns on the WXR. My personal preference is to have the TS activity there, even if this results in a (slightly) less accurate rendition on the field.

I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I have to point out that anyone with ASN could probably answer your question, or at least anyone on the Beta team. In fact, I've never tried the option you reference because I don't see the point of it. From what I understand, it will only prevent storms (lightning and turbulence), not rain.

 

Edit:

Just to clarify, I'm happy that someone would think to ask for help from me directly, but at the same time, I just want to caution people.  I might come across as pretty knowledgeable, but my knowledge is pretty specific, and there are several guys (and perhaps gals, somewhere) here who are leaps and bounds above me in their own areas.