So, let's just talk about the weather...

[Bob Scott 7,716]

...in MSFS 2020.

From a user perspective, there are a few things I can think of that are important w/r/t weather in the sim:

1.  Proper weather effects and depiction--winds, visibility, and cloud coverage and ceilings in particular
2.  Ability to set weather based on the season, date, and time of flight
3.  Ability to get a forecast of the departure and arrival weather and enroute conditions for planning

#1 was clearly the focus area of the MSFS developer...I haven't experimented extensively with it yet, but it looks like they spent a lot of time and energy on the actual weather physics and graphics modelling.

#2 is an issue if you want to fly at a time other than right now.  The are three options to set weather: a preset (clear, fair, storms etc), a global manual entry, or via Live weather download at the current time wherever the plane is in the world, not the time/date in the sim.  Presets are handy to just throw something up, manual wx setting is extremely tedious and misses weather changes along a route, and live only works out if your sim time and date are, well, right this minute.  Let's suppose I want to fly a daytime sightseeing flight out of Goma, Congo to see the Nyiragongo volcano.  If it's 6 PM here at my house in Colorado, it's 1 AM in Goma.  When I set the sim flight up for a mid-afternoon flight, as soon as I hit the "Live" weather button, it goes pitch dark in the sim, and the weather is what's present right then at 1 AM local time in Goma, not at 3PM with thunderstorms building around the area.  So the only way to avail myself of the Live weather capabilities for a morning flight in Europe is to wake up and do it at 3AM??  What if it's August and I want to do a winter flight into Innsbruck?  We're really going to need historical weather snapshots similar to what weather add-ons like ActiveSky do for us now.

#3 is important if you're trying to load an FMC with enroute winds and temp data, or if you want to do crazy stuff like get a simulated weather briefing before a simulated flight.

My concern is that the weather engine doesn't address the wider needs of simulation aside from replicating what's out there right now.  That only works if you'll always just want to fly in the present moment.

Does anyone know if the weather engine is going to be accessible enough in the SDK for a third-party solution to these issues? 

[RALF9636 1,920]

These are exactly my thoughts about the weather in MSFS. Thanks for posting.

I miss the Active Sky UI with the weather map, the METARs and the historic weather.

HIFI / ActiveSky have been completely silent about MSFS so far as far as I am aware.

Edited August 20, 2020 by RALF9636

[sd_flyer 6,034]

Well, the whole continental USA with live weather has wind 3kts at any altitude! They gotta fix that first! 

[FPStewy 538]

11 minutes ago, w6kd said:

3.  Ability to get a forecast of the departure and arrival weather and enroute conditions for planning

not being able to get a metar at the start is a bummer for sure

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

16 minutes ago, w6kd said:

2.  Ability to set weather based on the season, date, and time of flight

You can set live weather. Then when in the sim just use the slider to change the time, the weather will stay live (or so I believe) 

[thegeneral101 18]

14 minutes ago, FPStewy said:

not being able to get a metar at the start is a bummer for sure

this was a bummer. I hope it gets added. They really played up the partnership with Meteoblue so I was hoping it was a really deep weather UI as well. 

[Gabe777 132]

No choice of cloud types. Set a layer at 35 000 ft and they give you cumulus.

Bit of a joke.

I think the entire thing is basically an arcadey "scenery SIM" currently.

Revist in a year or so

[RALF9636 1,920]

5 hours ago, RALF9636 said:

These are exactly my thoughts about the weather in MSFS. Thanks for posting.

I miss the Active Sky UI with the weather map, the METARs and the historic weather.

HIFI / ActiveSky have been completely silent about MSFS so far as far as I am aware.

Update (from another thread):

26 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

Let's hope they make SDK provisions for weather add-ons some day.  As of now, none exist that we are aware of.  We did work hard on preparing something for MSFS, in hopes that they would eventually make weather SDK functions work, and that work is ready if they open it up later on.  Until then we are locked out.

 

I hope Asobo make the weather and/or the weather SDK a high priority for them now. They have laid a great foundation with their weather system but I hope they don't stop there.

 

Edited August 20, 2020 by RALF9636

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

They are in this for the long haul guys. If everything was perfect right now they didn't need to keep on working. Relax and enjoy all the little presents we are gonna get from Asobo, subcontractors and 3rd party devs in the time to come. 

[MrStarhouse 13]

6 hours ago, sd_flyer said:

Well, the whole continental USA with live weather has wind 3kts at any altitude! They gotta fix that first! 

Well that can’t be the whole truth. I just landed south of Denver an hour ago and had 14kt from South East.

[regis9 4,004]

Have the Active Sky developers had anything to say about MSFS so far?

Edited August 20, 2020 by regis9

[unforgivnn 0]

Greetings!

How well has the live weather feature worked for people so far? The weather out my window is generally very different from the weather at my local airport in the sim which is about five miles away. Earlier today, it was overcast and in the sim, it was barely partly cloudy.

I understand the weather is not going to be identical, cloud-for-cloud, but I was a little disappointed that it was overcast and a change of rain out the window, and mostly clear skies in the sim.

I also understand that this is very early on and bugs likely need to be worked out and future features added. So I am not complaining per se. I'm love the sim as it stands in v1. Just wondering what others were experiencing.

I might also mention, that the atmospheric pressure in the sim is wildly off from real life. 30.17 in hg out the window and 29.84 in the sim. ATIS also seems to report few clouds around 400', 9000', and 12,400' all the time at every airport.

Have others experienced this same type of behavior?

[flyinpilot212121 724]

10 minutes ago, regis9 said:

Have the Active Sky developers had anything to say about MSFS so far?

Read a few post above, they mention they are locked out at the moment which is a bummer. 

Edited August 20, 2020 by flyinpilot212121

[Marco Manieri 194]

6 hours ago, w6kd said:

When I set the sim flight up for a mid-afternoon flight, as soon as I hit the "Live" weather button, it goes pitch dark in the sim, and the weather is what's present right then at 1 AM local time in Goma, not at 3PM with thunderstorms building around the area.  So the only way to avail myself of the Live weather capabilities for a morning flight in Europe is to wake up and do it at 3AM??

Hit the preset button instead of the live button.

Then choose the Live Preset.

Then you can change date & time freely.

You'll fly at that time and date but weather will still be the "current" live one (I think... never actually checked if by chance you get historical ... Would be great 😔)

[UAL4life 237]

I don’t have much faith in this sim ever being more than an arcade interpretation of the weather. It looks amazing though and it’s fun to just mess around with but you can’t get serious with it.