Interesting Live weather observation

[morso484 24]

The issues with live weather, ( or lack thereof), in MSFS have been done to death, but I thought I'd add an interesting observation I had the other day.  

I live in northern Illinois, KFRD, (Rockford Intl) is about 10 miles away from my house, so that is were I start out from mostly.  One day last week we had a good snow storm, about 5-6 inches on the ground.  It's still out there as temps have not risen.  I thought I'd try out the live weather the other day and found it to be accurate, but no real snow accumulation on the ground, mostly green between the runways.  Temps and pressure and sky conditions were right though.  The snow looked like the light wind driven kind that appears in corners and up against buildings.  Our ground here is completely covered.  So while the live weather was accurate, snow accumulations were not.

Now for the interesting thing, yesterday we woke to a very dark and foggy day here and temps near freezing.  All the trees were covered in rime ice.  As explained on the local news, super cooled water vapor stuck to everything.  Spikey ice crystals formed over everything, even on smooth icicles. Great to look at, not to be in.  So I started MSFS, at KRFD with a Piper PA-44 just to see what would happen.  The plane spawned at the end of the runway and in a few moments, the engines quit.  The windows started to ice over, I used the external view and saw the airframe iced over, ( in the overdone fashion the MSFS does).  When I went back in he cockpit, the windows were completely iced over and I couldn't see out, the skies were dark and foggy.  All this as shown correctly in live weather.  A short time later, I repeated the experiment only I used a Bonanza instead, same result, but the engine stayed running.  The windows were coated with ice just like the cars in out driveway.  People from the colder climates will know what I mean.

So, in my opinion, live weather seems to work pretty well, overcast or fog, clear or broken clouds seem correct, maybe not in precise location of clouds or darkness of skies, but pretty good.  It seemed lacking in snow accumulation, but I don't know how accurate the aviation weather sources they use need to be as concerned over accumulation totals.  Do pilots flying into KFRD care how much snow is covering the ground as long as the runways and taxiways are clear?  I agree that I would like to see snow covered ground if it's 6" deep out here, but maybe they will get there.

Just a thought.

[NightOfDreams 370]

I have yet to see snow in my area. Rumor has it that Alaska and the Rocky Mountains have lots of snow coverage. I've been using custom weather with snow depth and attempting to replicate current weather conditions.

[Flyfaster_MTN002 412]

Just tried starting with clear skies and turning LIVE weather on once sim started. supposed to be 800 OVC. Instead saw blue skies a few clouds with some scattered cloud decks.... Completely wrong....

[Mike S KPDX 598]

go here meteoblue snow depth

MS sim snow accumulation will only begin at .75

[Flyfaster_MTN002 412]

Did first time with Unreal weather today. It was fantastic (after initial botched setup and re-install). The Metars at both dep and arr airports were spot on! Finally 🙂

[bszuch 95]

If the .75 is indeed accurate, that seems crazy high to start accumulation on the ground.  9" of snow is quite an accumulation to start at.  I certainly hope they rethink and caliberate their starting point if that is the case.

[JRBarrett 3,206]

On December 17, (and for at least a week afterward) there was between 1 and 3 feet of snow in all of upstate New York, and that accumulation clearly showed as such on the MeteoBlue web site snow map, but it was never displayed in the sim. This snowfall took place after the release of the latest sim update that includes snow cover. 

It seems that the system is incorrectly taking either latitude and/or elevation into account in deciding whether to display snow or not. At the same time that snow-covered New York was shown with bare ground, 250 miles north in Ontario Province of Canada, (which also had deep snow), the snow was indeed displayed in the sim. Likewise the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and the Sierras in California accurately displayed the snow that existed there.

Based on the MeteoBlue snow map, they obviously have accurate data on where snow cover exists worldwide. It is a mystery why that does not translate to snow in the sim where it currently exists. If the snow data indicates deep snow on the ground, then the sim should place snow on the ground. Latitude or elevation should not factor into it.

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

4 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

On December 17, (and for at least a week afterward) there was between 1 and 3 feet of snow in all of upstate New York, and that accumulation clearly showed as such on the MeteoBlue web site snow map, but it was never displayed in the sim. This snowfall took place after the release of the latest sim update that includes snow cover. 

It seems that the system is incorrectly taking either latitude and/or elevation into account in deciding whether to display snow or not. At the same time that snow-covered New York was shown with bare ground, 250 miles north in Ontario Province of Canada, (which also had deep snow), the snow was indeed displayed in the sim. Likewise the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and the Sierras in California accurately displayed the snow that existed there.

Yah, something is bugged. The blizzard in Texas dropped 2 feet of snow in one day over Big Bend last week. I checked the area and only the mountains far to the east of Big Bend had any snow (about 5 miles of snow coverage shown about 100 miles away). Even if it only started at 9", most of the entire part of West Texas had more than 9", especially any hills or mtns, yet even mountains that had over 2 feet of snow were showing nothing.

Again, it did show the snow coverage in a very small area, but I don't know why other than some type of processing bug with the way they are evaluating the data.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Alpine Scenery

[Nyxx 6,994]

I really don't know how you expect a sim to know "snow accumulation" it depends on wind and other factors. Do you expect the snow accumulation to be on one side of a car/ building since the wind/snow fell from that directions? IMO live weather is great but "snow accumulation" being accurate, I think your asking to much from any weather "forecast"

The Icing might be over done I agree but it looks great and is far better than nothing. Tone down yes but its great to have. I also love how it slowly melts as it gets warmer.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Nyxx

[Alpine Scenery 1,609]

1 hour ago, Nyxx said:

I really don't know how you expect a sim to know "snow accumulation" it depends on wind and other factors. Do you expect the snow accumulation to be on one side of a car/ building since the wind/snow fell from that directions? IMO live weather is great but "snow accumulation" being accurate, I think your asking to much from any weather "forecast"

I doubt anyone is expecting such specificity, only that we would prefer it to function automatically in much the same way as if you adjust the snow slider in the game (say set to 2"), and that to be auto-sync'd to the MeteoBlue data. This is incredibly simple for them to do, given the fact that you can already add snow coverage with the slider manually, and given that the SIM is already PARTIALLY doing it, and given that they are already using SOME of the correct data. It just means there is some data they are not looking at correctly in a conditional statement.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Alpine Scenery

[Car147 2,294]

On the other hand, i have been very impressed with the weather over the UK for example has been pretty bang on...

[Nyxx 6,994]

1 hour ago, Alpine Scenery said:

I doubt anyone is expecting such specificity, only that we would prefer it to function automatically in much the same way as if you adjust the snow slider in the game (say set to 2"), and that to be auto-sync'd to the MeteoBlue data. This is incredibly simple for them to do, given the fact that you can already add snow coverage with the slider manually, and given that the SIM is already PARTIALLY doing it, and given that they are already using SOME of the correct data. It just means there is some data they are not looking at correctly in a conditional statement.

Well the field at the top of  the hill were I live has a good covering and my back garden 400 yards away has none if only MSFS would fix this ...................its not even "partially"

[JRBarrett 3,206]

3 hours ago, Nyxx said:

 

I really don't know how you expect a sim to know "snow accumulation" it depends on wind and other factors. Do you expect the snow accumulation to be on one side of a car/ building since the wind/snow fell from that directions? IMO live weather is great but "snow accumulation" being accurate, I think your asking to much from any weather "forecast"

 

The snow accumulation does not come from a forecast. Data on where snow already exists, (and how deep it is) is available worldwide to meteorological forecasting services. Data on existing snow cover is one of the initializing parameters for the predictive forecast model, as areas of extensive snow cover influence air temperature and pressure over wide areas. MeteoBlue definitely has access to this data, as a map of existing snow cover is available on their web site, and it is this data that was supposed to be included as part of the overall LiveWeather injection beginning with the last sim update.

It does appear to be working, but not everywhere.

[fppilot 4,444]

10 hours ago, Flyfaster_MTN002 said:

Did first time with Unreal weather today. It was fantastic (after initial botched setup and re-install). The Metars at both dep and arr airports were spot on! Finally 🙂

I assume you confirmed visually.  Did you compare the Unreal weather and metars to ATIS/AWOS?  (Sorry, couldn't resist)

Edited January 7, 2021 by fppilot

[Twenty6 694]

3 hours ago, Nyxx said:

The Icing might be over done I agree but it looks great and is far better than nothing. Tone down yes but its great to have. I also love how it slowly melts as it gets warmer.

The icing effect is agressive and overdone. Sometimes nothing is the way to go. Until Osobo addresses this issue, which I doubt is very high on their list, JayDee has made a "No Windshield Icing Mooney Ovation" mod. It's on the FlightSim.To website.