REX WEATHER FORCE IS THE NEW METAR-BASED DYNAMIC REAL-TIME WEATHER ENGINE FOR MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR

 

By utilizing inter-process communication with the simulator via fine granular control, you will experience automated, dynamic, and smooth weather transitions from real-world reporting metar stations. Weather Force also includes a wide range of our proprietary dynamic, changing (non-static) weather scenarios. These scenarios are unlike the static weather presets that ship with the simulator.  

 

• The metar data is updated 6x an hour and downloaded directly from NOAA. Our data can provide accurate results within a 1/8th mile of a given point.
• Utilizes uniquely built algorithms to combine both metar and model data to cover sparse areas such as deserts and oceans. 
• The GFS (Global Forecast System) Model data is downloaded 2x a day from NCEP and provides key atmospheric conditions to give a snapshot of temperature and winds aloft.

 

http://rexsimulations.com/weatherforce.html

Edited September 16, 20205 yr by SierraHotel

Back to P3D, weather addone was a really easy sell but now, is not an easy sell. But this time really, I fail to see where it fills the gap, I mean the weather system by asobo is really good to me, even Active Sky is admitting this and they are still looking for a good use case for a weather add ones. So yeah, for me is just marketing with fancy UI. But definitely, I am looking forward for some in depth unbiased comparisons, maybe we are wrong, I don't know. 

Edited September 16, 20205 yr by omarsmak30

2 minutes ago, Sticky said:

That’s great and all, but why is the weather over the airport so wrong all the time? Their fancy AI can crunch all the data it wants, but if doesn’t create 200 foot ceilings and 1/2 mile visibility at the airport, what good is it?

I don't know. I assume it's still buggy like a lot of MSFS.

The point I'm making is this: What REX is doing here seems completely trivial compared to the stock MSFS weather feature set, if it eventually works right. Getting accurate weather observations into the sim at a handful of METAR stations (compared to the huge number of weather stations that drive the Meteoblue observations and models) isn't a complex problem, and I'm quite sure it's easily solvable with a few MSFS patches.

I think they are a bit early with something like this.

I'd give ASOBO and Meteoblue at least another 6 months to iron out bugs in the weather engine before trying to overwrite the default system.

What will it be good for, as REX cannot overcome MSFS's limitations?

Even though the REX weather engine is pushing the proper temperatures and winds aloft data through to the simulator, due to core issues of Microsoft Flight Simulator, temperatures and winds aloft are not properly rendered yet. Microsoft & Asobo are aware of this issue. (September 13, 2020)

3 minutes ago, Pegaso said:

What will it be good for, as REX cannot overcome MSFS's limitations?

Even though the REX weather engine is pushing the proper temperatures and winds aloft data through to the simulator, due to core issues of Microsoft Flight Simulator, temperatures and winds aloft are not properly rendered yet. Microsoft & Asobo are aware of this issue. (September 13, 2020)

Which are being fixed in the next update!!...........................

Edited September 16, 20205 yr by SierraHotel

3 hours ago, rstough said:

Metar is real data reported from an observer.  

That is true, but it is in no way superiour to model data, because it only applies to the moment of observation and for a certain radius around the observation. If you fly in areas where METAR stations are sparse you will get considerable inaccuracies. Active Sky tries to solve that with their interpolation algorithm, but this can still be hit and miss.

Meteoblue's grid system is much more accurate when it comes to depicting wheather on a global scale.

Only the interfacing with the sim seems to need quite some additional work, including using the actual METAR reports (which Meteoblue also provides on their weather charts).

1 hour ago, FAZZ3 said:

I don't know. The clouds look extremely similar to the ones we have in MSFS. The only differences I see are 

This program is not aiming to replace or updated the cloud models in the game. Just to implement correct METAR depiction, which is currently lacking in the sim.

By the way you are late to the party:

Although your title is much more indicative of what is being talked about. 😉

 

1 minute ago, Farlis said:

This program is not aiming to replace or updated the cloud models in the game. Just to implement correct METAR depiction, which is currently lacking in the sim.

Well that's not very convincing.

It just seems like they're taking the opportunity of MSFS's bugs to just provide a stopgap solution to a problem that can be very easily fixed by Asobo, which perhaps they may have done already in an internal build due to be released in the next patch.

Just now, FAZZ3 said:

Well that's not very convincing.

It just seems like they're taking the opportunity of MSFS's bugs to just provide a stopgap solution to a problem that can be very easily fixed by Asobo, which perhaps they may have done already in an internal build due to be released in the next patch.

I don’t think the lack of METAR implementation is a bug....

Just now, Sticky said:

I don’t think the lack of METAR implementation is a bug....

They're not using a METAR system, but rather a global grid system.

Hello,

Just a dumb question : for simply injecting metars in the sim, why just a plugin, like NOAA plugin in X-Plane, would not be sufficient ?

4 hours ago, rstough said:

Metar's is about as accurate as you can get.  It is reported data directly from a human or an automated station.  The simulator uses model data. This would be data generated from computer models and though you may have some accurate points, there are often misses.  Don't get me wrong the sim is AMAZING.  But we felt the weather engine could be greatly improved.  Plus our plan is to integrate archived weather after the initial release.

Actually it's quite the opposite. Leaving beside the frequent data errors (in some countries more frequent than in others) METARS just give you the information for a certain point. That might not be a big deal if you have many many stations reporting, but for most (>90%) parts of the world the stations are way too sparse to get a good 3d weather simulation from it. The next issue is: METARs give you no information about winds in atmosphere, only at the ground. That alone is a deal breaker. Cloud top level is often missing as well, and even in a lot circumstances complete cloud layers cannot be reported by METAR if a dense cloud layer is below. Cirrus is not reported at all in most cases. Conclusion: METAR is great for giving a very accurate information about current weather situation at a specific airport. You use that for planning takeoff and landing for reasons. But for drawing a complete 3d picture of the weather and atmosphere, METARs are by far not enough. Frequently updated model output is far better for that nowadays.

1 minute ago, Weatherman said:

Actually it's quite the opposite. Leaving beside the frequent data errors (in some countries more frequent than in others) METARS just give you the information for a certain point. That might not be a big deal if you have many many stations reporting, but for most (>90%) parts of the world the stations are way too sparse to get a good 3d weather simulation from it. The next issue is: METARs give you no information about winds in atmosphere, only at the ground. That alone is a deal breaker. Cloud top level is often missing as well, and even in a lot circumstances complete cloud layers cannot be reported by METAR if a dense cloud layer is below. Cirrus is not reported at all in most cases. Conclusion: METAR is great for giving a very accurate information about current weather situation at a specific airport. You use that for planning takeoff and landing for reasons. But for drawing a complete 3d picture of the weather and atmosphere, METARs are by far not enough. Frequently updated model output is far better for that nowadays.

You have the chosen the right username 😄