FX real weather accuracy?

[vonmar 122]

I am at KDTW.For the last week I have snow on the ground using FX live WX updated every 15 minutes.But, there has not been actual snow accumulation for quite some time because of the warmer than normal temperatures.When time and date are current and WX is received ... how accurate is it supposed to be?What I am getting is not current conditions.Anyone else see this happening?

[Geofa 108]

Someone more up on this can give you a more accurate answer than I can-but the snow on the ground is done by seasonal maps for different times of the year based on typical conditions . I downloaded a free file somewhere a few weeks ago (don't ask me where-I already forgot where I got it) which is supposed to have a more accurate map based on real noaa data and be an improvement over the default one.However-it is not based on actual daily conditions-but typical conditions that have been measured over time.As you know-we are not typical now in dtw (thank god! at least for me) so fsx is projecting what is usually found for this time of year-not what we actually have. The real weather is based hopefully and usually on the real stuff-but the snow cover is based on seasonal maps.Edit-I found the file on another site-called North America winter seasonal change by Scott Smart. His file explanation says it better than I did above:"FS2004 North America Winter Season Changes. FS2004 uses a single seasons.bgl file to control which seasonal texture variation is used. This file uses 12 different seasonal "maps" which provide the geographic coverage for each of the texture variations. These variations are winter, hard winter (contains snow), spring, summer and fall. The maps change about the 19th of each month. These maps have a relatively coarse resolution, making it difficult to obtain precise results. One complaint about the seasons is the distribution of snow cover in North America. This scenery add-on uses data on snow coverage from the US NOAA agency to modify the default snow region distribution. By Scott Smart."http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

[GHarrall 494]

Snow on the ground is a seasonal texture change that takes place at a given date in the year.The real world weather download has no effect on this. Hope this helps,Glenn

[vonmar 122]

OK,That explains it.At first .... thought ... my pc was somehow pulling the wrong information somehow.So, it is actually .... semi-real WX every 15 minutes!Anyway, thanks for the follow up guys.