Third party weather

[rwalls 25]

My biggest problem with the default weather as well as REX is the inability to use historical weather. I often do my flying at night or after work and the is just not the same as I would experience on a flight during the day (especially winds).

Richard

[Mace 1,902]

1 hour ago, JRBarrett said:

All upper winds found on official aviation weather forecast sites come from predictive forecast models no different than what MeteoBlue provides. There is no such thing as “real” upper winds from any site. Avation upper wind and temperature forecasts originating from the US are usually based on the GFS model. 

I fly probably 20 hours each week in MSFS and send my flight plan and current aircraft position into Foreflight, which allows me to see the official NOAA forecast upper-level wind and temperature at the aircraft current position and altitude, and compare it to the conditions generated by Live Weather. They match very closely probably 95 percent of the time.

I'm glad it works for you.  I often expect winds 310/80 and with Live weather I end up with 150/40, or worse.  Naturally you can see what that does to fuel usage, etc.   I don't expect winds to match, that would be ridiculous and even un-fun, because in real life I can't imagine things matching up all the time.   But ballpark would be nice.  Kind of like what I get with ActiveSky.

I'll keep trying and hoping, I guess.

 

[mikeklimek 145]

Live weather is decent for me with the exception of the constant lightning in anything but clear skies.  If they can't do lightning correctly, I'd prefer they just remove it altogether until they can.

 

Edited July 22, 2021 by mikeklimek

[JRBarrett 3,049]

26 minutes ago, Mace said:

I'm glad it works for you.  I often expect winds 310/80 and with Live weather I end up with 150/40, or worse.  Naturally you can see what that does to fuel usage, etc.   I don't expect winds to match, that would be ridiculous and even un-fun, because in real life I can't imagine things matching up all the time.   But ballpark would be nice.  Kind of like what I get with ActiveSky.

I'll keep trying and hoping, I guess.

 

This is strange, as I almost never see any serious disparity between Live Weather winds aloft and winds from other sources such as the NOAA GFS model. As I said, I fly about 20 hours each week, and I monitor the wind speed, direction and temperature continuously on every single flight. This is an area of particular interest to me, and I pay very close attention to the wind.

Now, I have occasionally seen sudden and massive wind shifts where the wind direction suddenly changes by 180 degrees instantaneously. I am assuming this is due to some kind of data corruption in the injected weather. It does not happen very often. 

[Damian Clark 1,149]

Same argument over and over here, and it's already been decided long ago.  Many really feel that having any SDK access to weather will completely ruin their stock weather experience, for some reason.  Many disagree greatly with that.

Apparently many are very unhappy that they had Active Sky in the past and felt "forced" to use it.  To feel how you do, to want to keep us and other developers in our genre locked out forever, left only as a negative memory of the past, we must have really messed up somehow, and we're sorry.  We thought we were working so hard and offering so much, for so many years, to help improve your weather experience on all the different platforms you asked for, with so many sacrifices to do that, but I guess we were misguided.  We really do reflect on all that and as we say goodbye to (official) MSFS add-on development after 20 years of cooperation, as community proponents, we at least appreciate that you are happy with your MSFS new weather solution and hope that it bodes well for you now and always.  There's no doubt it's a really nice stock weather experience and getting better all the time.  

The loud roar of demand for AS for MSFS, in any form, with any limitations, outside of any official API/SDK and support of MSFS developers, is getting louder all the time.... so despite all the negatives, all the risk, and the sometimes hard feelings, we are working on it and getting very close.  We know at least a few of you will appreciate those efforts and we thank you very much for your support in these very challenging times.

 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Damian Clark

[Sphynnx 91]

MSFS 2020 clouds, are the most beautiful, from any other flight simulators 

But, there is always a " but"

It would be great to have some different types of clouds 

[Maxis 1,857]

3 minutes ago, Sphynnx said:

MSFS 2020 clouds, are the most beautiful, from any other flight simulators 

But, there is always a " but"

It would be great to have some different types of clouds 

I'm sure they will address that over time. 

[JRBarrett 3,049]

15 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

 

Same argument over and over here, and it's already been decided long ago.  Many really feel that having any SDK access to weather will completely ruin their stock weather experience, for some reason.  Many disagree greatly with that.

 

Damian - I don’t think that many in the general MSFS user community feel that a third party weather solution would in any way “ruin” the MSFS weather experience. The only objections I commonly see are those by individuals who don’t want to have to pay for a third party solution when MS “promised” a complete and accurate weather system would be part of the core sim (for free).

The main opposition appears to be more from MS/Asobo who do not want to officially support any external weather software.

In many ways, the default Live Weather does indeed do an incredible job, but it is also seriously lacking in the area of injecting correct and current METAR clouds, precipitation and visibility for airports.

I am very sure that if HiFi can bring that to MSFS, while retaining general compatibility with the overall weather model (or even enhance what MeteoBlue already provides), I would think that it would be welcomed with open arms by the MSFS user community.

[Damian Clark 1,149]

Thanks for the perspective Jim.

3 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

The only objections I commonly see are those by individuals who don’t want to have to pay for a third party solution when MS “promised” a complete and accurate weather system would be part of the core sim (for free).

What defines a complete and accurate weather system?  Where is the line drawn between the ultimate stock experience and what might be possible with 3rd party efforts?  The argument I'm seeing is that everything any add-on has ever offered (say Active Sky, for example) or has ever imagined, should be free and stock.  Why doesn't this same logic apply to aircraft, scenery, other utilities, etc?  Why aren't 3rd party weather add-on efforts considered valuable when the other categories are?  Just thinking out loud.

[JRBarrett 3,049]

5 minutes ago, Damian Clark said:

Thanks for the perspective Jim.

What defines a complete and accurate weather system?  Where is the line drawn between the ultimate stock experience and what might be possible with 3rd party efforts?  The argument I'm seeing is that everything any add-on has ever offered (say Active Sky, for example) or has ever imagined, should be free and stock.  Why doesn't this same logic apply to aircraft, scenery, other utilities, etc?  Why aren't 3rd party weather add-on efforts considered valuable when the other categories are?  Just thinking out loud.

No argument here. “Stock” airports and aircraft are fine - but 3PDs can (and have) brought much more to the table. While some may not want to have to pay for enhanced/expanded weather functionality, many others anxiously look forward to the day that AS comes to MSFS. I certainly do - as a long-time HiFi customer in FSX, P3D and XP I would be delighted to see what you can do for MSFS.

[fppilot 4,355]

5 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

maybe you should return to P3D and Active Sky then.

I am still about 70/30 with the 30 in MSFS.  I completed a 4.6 hour GA flight today in MSFS from Eastern Maryland to Milwaukee and used both MSFS live weather and REX WF and winds aloft were okay.  Clouds accurate about 50% of the time in either.  Pressure a bit better than that.  With MSFS live I experienced continuous thunderstorms from NW Ohio all the way to landing in Milwaukee. Those in a 6/10ths coverage layer of fluffy cumulus clouds and I was easily on top at 10,000 ft.  Not conditions for thunderstorms and there were no thunderstorms in today's actual weather.  When I switched to REX WF I had no thunderstorms.  

[fppilot 4,355]

So I see in the July 22 Update that improvements to weather are now pushed off to Sim Update 6 which has a September date to be announced later.

[Mace 1,902]

2 hours ago, Damian Clark said:

 Why aren't 3rd party weather add-on efforts considered valuable when the other categories are?  Just thinking out loud.

Oh...they are considered valuable...VERY valuable.  And very desirable.  You may be hearing the wrong voices.

This reminds me of 2007-08, when there were issues with wind shifts in FSX and certain aircraft.  MSFS seems to do the same.  I had an awful flight tonight, because of this.  Stock ain't cuttin it.

[Ricardo41 5,936]

I'm firmly in the camp of "I want to spend as little money as possible on third party addons". Not just because of the money, but because of the pain and headache that comes with maintaining a stable full of external addons that you have to start or fiddle around with before getting to the actual sim. 

I have a simple, some might say simplistic, yardstick for the weather: I live fairly close to my home airport; does the weather at my sim home airport look like the weather outside? More often than not, it does. This has also improved over the course of the updates, to the point where I don't fire up Rex Weather Force anymore. 

Let me remind folks that we used to pay for raindrops, clouds, shaders, rain effects on glass, etc. - to be sure, some of that was available as freeeware. In MSFS this all comes with the base sim and - to add icing on the cake - comes with close to no performance penalty and low/medium settings (settings which are, unlike in P3D, visually pleasing).

[BIGSKY 316]

9 hours ago, ar_0 said:

This is exactly what I'm experiencing. I check local weather on different weather sites, and the sim isn't remotely close to what's going on around me. 

Yes,I am getting perpetual thunderstorms everywhere.......