MSFS LIVE Weather: is there an app that can read/search it?

[mikealpha 266]

1 hour ago, Dominique_K said:

The weather is better represented in MFS than in the competition (my opinion, YMMV) but, and this is for me the most glaring deficiency, the simmer cannot get a decent weather briefing at departure and arrival when LW cannot be called in the world map which is quite often. When calling it in-game, the LW table is greyed out and empty. And in any case there is nothing for the en-route weather.

And in a way, it negates all the BS about MFS being for serious VFR simmers. They did their best to get a visual representation without considering that VFR  flying is all about knowing the weather. Here, there and in-between.

Yup, absolutely, but not only for VFR simmers. How can you do a serious Airliner Flight with the current guesswork ?

MS needs to open up their weather engine for third party developers (e.g. Hifisim). Without that, MSFS remains a sightseeing simulator.

Mike

[Dominique_K 10,137]

25 minutes ago, mikealpha said:

Yup, absolutely, but not only for VFR simmers. How can you do a serious Airliner Flight with the current guesswork ?

I agree of course, I was just referring to theit own narrative.

[vbazillio 2,234]

As a VFR pilot and mostly flying in realtime/realweather, I feel realistic to get a briefing with whatever real tool (skydemon, windy, MOS Foreflight...) and not be sure at all to have the exact same conditions in the sim 😉 Looks like As-real-as-it-gets when forecast are not "exactly" what I have or even better : when there're weather conditions that I have no clue at all in my preflight because of the lack of weather station and that my preparation relies on model forecast 😉. 

[Dominique_K 10,137]

11 minutes ago, vbazillio said:

As a VFR pilot and mostly flying in realtime/realweather, I feel realistic to get a briefing with whatever real tool (skydemon, windy, MOS Foreflight...) and not be sure at all to have the exact same conditions in the sim 😉 Looks like As-real-as-it-gets when forecast are not "exactly" what I have or even better : when there're weather conditions that I have no clue at all in my preflight because of the lack of weather station and that my preparation relies on model forecast 😉. 

Very true but at least you have a briefing of probable weather. You don't start your flight if the apps gives you non-VFR condition at arrival or too strong gusting  at landing I suppose etc. and you know the wind/strength  direction on the runway you take off. 

And your apps may not give you the weather in "uncivilized" areas. 

There is a need for a weather briefing table like Active Sky has.   

 

[Will Fly For Cheese 1,710]

2 hours ago, vbazillio said:

So far, the only app that I know that can display weather data is FSPM VFR Map that display wind direction and strength (https://flightsim.to/file/3181/fspm-vfr-map)

 

I was about to suggest that one too. It will in addition to the above give you barometric pressure and current OAT as well.

The Airspace overlay of the map is very handy. I've had this little app on the top bar for months and haven't opened the built in VFR Map since.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Will Fly For Cheese

[hangar 661]

6 hours ago, vbazillio said:

So far, the only app that I know that can display weather data is FSPM VFR Map that display wind direction and strength (https://flightsim.to/file/3181/fspm-vfr-map)

Thank you very much, Vincent...will check this out.

[hangar 661]

deleted; double post

Edited April 11, 2021 by hangar

[jrw4 624]

4 hours ago, vbazillio said:

As a VFR pilot and mostly flying in realtime/realweather, I feel realistic to get a briefing with whatever real tool (skydemon, windy, MOS Foreflight...) and not be sure at all to have the exact same conditions in the sim 😉 Looks like As-real-as-it-gets when forecast are not "exactly" what I have or even better : when there're weather conditions that I have no clue at all in my preflight because of the lack of weather station and that my preparation relies on model forecast 😉. 

You might want to try the Rex Weather Force app. It links the MSFS weather to real-time METAR data and should give you reasonable fidelity to real world weather.

[hangar 661]

2 minutes ago, jrw4 said:

You might want to try the Rex Weather Force app

How good is this app, John? I've been starting to read about it and found alot of mentions of how the freeware weather injector can be better in certain ways or at least as good. What is your feeling about it?

Edited April 11, 2021 by hangar

[JRBarrett 3,069]

11 hours ago, hangar said:

So...are you saying that you don't know of an app which does this, or are you saying that it's not possible for an app to read and report the current live weather as it is within the sim?

As of yet, Asobo has provided no information on the internal data structures in the sim that contain weather information, or SDK functions to access them. Until they do, there is no way any developer can produce an app that will provide the information you are looking for. You can query standard simconnect variables to give the current wind, temperature and pressure at the airplane’s current position, but that is it.

Since early December, MSFS has been using r/w METARS to set the wind, temperature and pressure at airports, so if you check r/w METARS for a specific airport (available from multiple sources), you will likely find that those three values will correspond to the most current METAR, but MSFS does not use clouds, precipitation or visibility from the METAR.

[jrw4 624]

20 minutes ago, hangar said:

How good is this app, John? I've been starting to read about it and found alot of mentions of how the freeware weather injector can be better in certain ways or at least as good. What is your feeling about it?

I have no clue about that freeware app, but at the price, I would certainly give it a try. I'm quite satisfied with WF, however. It does what it purports to do, by providing a METAR-consistent weather depiction inside of MSFS. Whether that looks as good as the sometimes astonishing depictions provided by the in-sim, METEOBLUE model-based system is a matter of individual opinion. In addition, one can obtain the current METAR of enroute and destination airports during the flight.

There are inevitable shortcomings of such systems, e.g., WF has to smooth the transition between the weather reports between stations, as well as over time when new weather is reported. And, of course, 75% of the world's surface is water, not land, so there can be no stations for thousands of miles in some cases, but that's inevitable for an METAR-based system. 

To put it succinctly, it works for me.

[hangar 661]

55 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

but MSFS does not use clouds, precipitation or visibility from the METAR

yep, and there's my issue...tired of looking up weather reports for an airport im planning on flying into and getting online metar reports that tell me the weather is clear with 10+ on the vis, only to arrive there with cloud layers, rain and socked in with 3nm vis and no IA's available...kills my entire flight, my personal gaming time, and leaves me with a feeling of disappointment. If I was practicing for diversion skills then yea great, fine...but I'm not wanting to do that. So I thought if there was just a simple app that can read what the actual live weather is within the sim then this sort of thing wouldn't happen. Yes, conditions might change a bit, but typically not a drastic one.

Anyway, there's no way to know anything about visibility and ceilings within the game (just having a hard time calling this a sim anymore).

Can't help but wonder why on earth individual hobbyists with no money can, in 9 months time, create more apps and fixes which are more pertinent to getting msfs into proper shape than the official developers who are highly paid and supposedly experienced (cough) can do 🙄

Edited April 11, 2021 by hangar

[jrw4 624]

47 minutes ago, hangar said:

yep, and there's my issue...tired of looking up weather reports for an airport im planning on flying into and getting online metar reports that tell me the weather is clear with 10+ on the vis, only to arrive there with cloud layers, rain and socked in with 3nm vis and no IA's available...kills my entire flight, my personal gaming time, and leaves me with a feeling of disappointment. If I was practicing for diversion skills then yea great, fine...but I'm not wanting to do that. So I thought if there was just a simple app that can read what the actual live weather is within the sim then this sort of thing wouldn't happen. Yes, conditions might change a bit, but typically not a drastic one.

Anyway, there's no way to know anything about visibility and ceilings within the game (just having a hard time calling this a sim anymore).

Can't help but wonder why on earth individual hobbyists with no money can, in 9 months time, create more apps and fixes which are more pertinent to getting msfs into proper shape than the official developers who are highly paid and supposedly experienced (cough) can do 🙄

Have you tried Unreal Weather, the freeware app that injects METAR-based weather? It might do the trick for you.

[hangar 661]

1 minute ago, jrw4 said:

Have you tried Unreal Weather, the freeware app that injects METAR-based weather? It might do the trick for you.

Not yet but I will be trying that one and perhaps also the payware to see which I prefer.

[Mike S KPDX 597]

Understood, and it truly is a shame that we are unable to access the in-game weather.  MS has stated that this access is 'not planned' and therefore will have to be fully overwritten by third parties.

A team that fully understood what was needed in a simulator for the aircraft types provided would have never allowed for a contract locked-down data set from a third party as we see from Meteo.  However, a gaming development studio thought this was the best thing ever.