Is Lightning Still a Thing?

[mikeklimek 158]

I'm flying in the Mooney at 14,000 feet, live weather, scattered clouds.  Lightning flashing around me.  However, the weather is good, there are no storms depicted in the sim, nor in the real-life Meteoblue weather conditions.  I thought lightning was corrected, am I mistaken in that?  Or am I always going to encounter this with certain cloud conditions with live weather?

The strange thing is, I've seen others complain about this in the past, but never encountered it myself even when flying in overcast conditions.  Now I'm seeing it quite a bit.

Edited May 28, 2021 by mikeklimek
Clarity

[kiwikat 525]

It was corrected but seems to be a problem again. I've run into it a couple times since the last sim update.

[mikeklimek 158]

Ah, ok, thanks kiwikat, glad to know I'm not going crazy! 🙂

[fppilot 4,391]

8 minutes ago, kiwikat said:

It was corrected but seems to be a problem again. I've run into it a couple times since the last sim update.

I am running into it constantly.  Back to using REX WF!

[kiwikat 525]

I've not been a fan of the weather system in this sim since the tech alpha. If they can't figure this thing out soon they need to open it up to devs who can. Active Sky has been a staple of our community for ages, let them at it.

[Ricardo41 5,958]

It is. 

[DaveS 146]

I would encourage people to vote on the "someone stop the freaking lightning" topic on the fs forums. This sadly may be the only way to get their attention. I also created a topic on improving lightning for the last Q&A and it hardly garnered any attention. Apparently most people are more concerned with being able to see a tree 40 miles a way than this

I would settle for a option to just turn off all lightning at this point...

Edited May 28, 2021 by DaveS

[reheat 1]

I'm getting this too. Lots of lightning again.

[Dominique_K 10,151]

This has been going on for months. It has never been corrected.  You get lightnings and thunderclaps when obviously there should be none. Or MeteoBlue is doing a poor job predicting the weather or the sim weather engine interprets MB data the wrong way. Or both. 

 There is a thread somewhere over there that I voted for some weeks back. 

[Tom_L 549]

1 hour ago, DaveS said:

I would encourage people to vote on the "someone stop the freaking lightning" topic on the fs forums.

That would be this thread. However, I think voting is one thing, assisting in determining the cause is another - and needed imho. I just answered to a user in the MSFS forums complaining he has lightning at KERV where in real life there is not. I think this is because clouds, precipitation and - i think - lightning is simulated in the sim based on a forecast model from Meteoblue. And here is how the CAPE index for the area of KERV looks:

The CAPE index marks the amount of energy in the atmosphere and is therefore an indicator for the probability of thunderstorms. I think we will have to accept that “Live weather” is more or less a closed system within the simulator that resembles the basic conditions of the atmosphere in real life - and it does that amazingly good imho. However, this includes atmospheric phenomena being simulated where in real life they are not present. Thunderstorms are the best example, because even modern technology is not able to predict where they emerge - if they are not caused by a moving cold front. So it is reasonable - based on the forecast model - to simulate lightning in the KERV area, even if it isn't present in real life. It could be, according to the forecast model, and that's why MSFS is simulating it. It's my guesswork, but I think it's reasonable. I also think what we need are means to access the in-game weather as it is simulated. Injecting real life METAR data is only an interim solution imho, as I think we need a sim-based METAR system we can use to plan our flights - and that would have TS included in this case.

 

Long story short:

If you want the lightning issue changed I think you need to participate in the discussion in the aforementioned thread and provide data to let the devs determine the cause of the issue: and that would be: date, time, location, your observation in comparison to the real life situation - at best accompanied by screenshots in-game and from Meteoblue data.

[Mace 1,942]

In many tropical areas, it can rain every day -- but not ALL day.  I'm thinking the predictive model isn't handling that well.   It can rain -- pouring rain -- for an hour and then be totally done (rest of day sunny) in places like Tampico, Mexico, or Panama City, Panama.

Yet when you spawn to these places you usually get thunder crashing and lightning all around, all day.

[Mace 1,942]

32 minutes ago, Tom_L said:

Long story short:

If you want the lightning issue changed I think you need to participate in the discussion in the aforementioned thread and provide data to let the devs determine the cause of the issue: and that would be: date, time, location, your observation in comparison to the real life situation - at best accompanied by screenshots in-game and from Meteoblue data.

I'm not sure how that would help in the use-case I mentioned above.  If CB's are predicted, they're going to be in the depiction.  Yet in many N. hemisphere locations this time of year, you can get a brief CB in the afternoon, but sunny and nice the rest of the day.

I really think the best sim weather would be a *combination* of the predictive model + a METAR based model (or some similar report-based data source).

[Tom_L 549]

2 minutes ago, Mace said:

I'm not sure how that would help in the use-case I mentioned above.

Imho it's all about awareness on side of the devs. Are you sure they know what you encounter? The "weather for the next day-loading-in-advance-at-2000z-bug" was present from launch until 2 days ago and solved only because some users persistantly dug into the issue and pinpointed it to what it was.

[Tuskin38 6,620]

1 hour ago, Dominique_K said:

. It has never been corrected.

They reduced it months ago, I've seen a lot less lightning then there was before.

[marsman2020 1,310]

Lightning is an accessibility issue.  Some people have issues with flashing lights.  There should be a way to turn it off entirely.  There is also no flashing light warning anywhere in the sim.

Edited May 28, 2021 by marsman2020