Site for exact live weather conditions?

[duckbilled 310]

Is there a way to look up the weather conditions at an airport without loading the sim? Like many, I have seen a bit of variation between METAR reports and what is actually loaded. I can think of an example on Saturday where the METAR at DTW stated light snow with overcast, but the sim loaded sunny skies with clouds in the distance. I always start with clear skies and load live weather at the gate.

I get it, it is not going to be exact as what I see outside, but is there a map/site/app that shows what the sim will actually load? With Active Sky, you can just search for an airport, and you know what you'll get. That's what I'm looking for.

The Meteoblue site has a lot of options, but I don't see an option to display the winds, altimeter, temps... by airport anywhere.

Not looking for an approximation. I want a report of what the sim will actually load. Seems like this should exist somewhere.

Thanks.

 

[haskell 298]

10 minutes ago, duckbilled said:

I want a report of what the sim will actually load. Seems like this should exist somewhere.

Can't get it. The sim uses forecast models to "approximate" the weather. So the METAR may match. Or it my be completely wrong. REX Weather Force is pretty good at it but is very buggy. When it works, it nails it. But there are still a lot of times where it doesn't work at all. 

[tull 290]

windy.com.......i use it all the time

[sidfadc 1,344]

2 minutes ago, tull said:

windy.com.......i use it all the time

+1

Its not perfect as in "what you see is what you get" but its pretty close for me.

[duckbilled 310]

Thanks all, but I'm looking for a site that uses the exact same data source as MSFS. Yes, I do want accurate weather, but if it is not 100% accurate, I at least want to know what I'm dealing with when I'm planning a flight. The example I gave is exactly what I'm trying to avoid.

Right now, I have no idea what I'm going to see in the sim until I'm sitting at the gate and I select live weather.

[duckbilled 310]

55 minutes ago, haskell said:

Can't get it. The sim uses forecast models to "approximate" the weather. So the METAR may match. Or it my be completely wrong. REX Weather Force is pretty good at it but is very buggy. When it works, it nails it. But there are still a lot of times where it doesn't work at all. 

Are you saying that MSFS is internally merging data from multiple sources and processing it on the fly within the sim?

[alexbap 25]

www.meteoblue.com

 

They are the company that provide weather to MSFS. 

their site has an amazing interactive map with everything you can imagine about word weather.

Edited February 15, 2021 by alexbap

[environmental_ice 238]

its a joke I have to run the unreal weather mod to get accurate weather at airports then switch to in sim live weather to get accurate winds aloft. its freakin 2021 and we are just on another fast track to where we were over a decade ago which is running a million programs just to get a realistic experience 

[lambourne 211]

17 minutes ago, duckbilled said:

Right now, I have no idea what I'm going to see in the sim until I'm sitting at the gate and I select live weather.

That's a major drawback in any flight simulation which includes weather. I tried a few GA circuits earlier only to lift off into 30kt 90 degree crosswinds. Real world metar, 15 minutes old, was 13kts and 30 degrees off runway heading. The TAF showed few changes for the whole day.

If there's one thing I've taken away from the MSFS Meteoblue tieup it's that Meteoblue's weather forecasting models aren't very good. I'd certainly look for alternatives before using their products in the real world now I've seen what their idea of a high profile deployment looks like.

[duckbilled 310]

3 hours ago, alexbap said:

www.meteoblue.com

 

They are the company that provide weather to MSFS. 

their site has an amazing interactive map with everything you can imagine about word weather.

Thanks. I did link to that in the original post. What I can't find is the spot on their site that shows the current conditions at airports. It is just a map and a bunch of info I don't really need to set up a flight.

With Active Sky all I have to do is search for the airport and I get the current conditions that will be injected into the sim once it loads. I've actually been using AS's UI to get the weather details, but if the sim weather isn't close to real weather, not sure how I'm supposed plan for a flight. In some cases I'll listen to the ATIS report online, but that isn't available for every airport. It doesn't really matter if it is available, because real ATIS may not match what is in the sim.

It is stuff like this that makes this sim so incredibly frustrating at times. I just don't get how Meteoblue can inject weather into the sim, but they don't have a site that shows what they are injecting.

 

[Mace 1,926]

29 minutes ago, duckbilled said:

It is stuff like this that makes this sim so incredibly frustrating at times. I just don't get how Meteoblue can inject weather into the sim, but they don't have a site that shows what they are injecting.

I don't think it injects current wx data, unless you use one of the mods people have mentioned.  The wx is a "predictive model" -- the developers words.  If you want to say it is injecting something, it's injecting wx based on that predictive model.

[RandallR 446]

Sometimes Live Weather is spot-on.  In fact, I'd say that I've had about an 80% match.

However, when it's off, it seems to be quite a bit off (double/triple winds, thunderstorms where there should be light precip, clouds tops 8,000 ft higher, 500' overcast down to 10').  And, of course, runway assignments from ATC in the opposite direction.  😗

One thing I would like to see, the ability to adjust live weather.  In other words, if Live is wrong (but a lot of the elements are close), the ability to grab a slider or two and "adapt" or edit to instantly correct it.  Presets just knock everything out and don't allow for BP settings.

[haskell 298]

5 hours ago, duckbilled said:

Are you saying that MSFS is internally merging data from multiple sources and processing it on the fly within the sim?

Not exactly. It all comes from Meteoblue. But it is not based on METARS. It is based on models. 

[Flyfaster_MTN002 412]

6 hours ago, duckbilled said:

Is there a way to look up the weather conditions at an airport without loading the sim? Like many, I have seen a bit of variation between METAR reports and what is actually loaded. I can think of an example on Saturday where the METAR at DTW stated light snow with overcast, but the sim loaded sunny skies with clouds in the distance. I always start with clear skies and load live weather at the gate.

I get it, it is not going to be exact as what I see outside, but is there a map/site/app that shows what the sim will actually load? With Active Sky, you can just search for an airport, and you know what you'll get. That's what I'm looking for.

The Meteoblue site has a lot of options, but I don't see an option to display the winds, altimeter, temps... by airport anywhere.

Not looking for an approximation. I want a report of what the sim will actually load. Seems like this should exist somewhere.

Thanks.

 

If you want more accuracy get UnrealWX and set it up (free). It pulls raw METAR data so you will get actual reported weather. That being said the latest changes to the MSFS modeling have improved substantially it is often better enroute, where the UnrealWX is great for terminal areas.

[fppilot 4,370]

7 hours ago, haskell said:

Can't get it. The sim uses forecast models to "approximate" the weather. So the METAR may match. Or it my be completely wrong. REX Weather Force is pretty good at it but is very buggy. When it works, it nails it. But there are still a lot of times where it doesn't work at all. 

Does this depend on region? Across the USA I have used REX WF extensively and have not had it be even close to completely wrong unless a server was down.  Maybe twice in 50 flights.  And at the same time the MSFS default also appeared to be down.  Hope no comments to this are based on MSFS ATIS/AWOS, which is beyond ridiculous.