Do we have any data to support the notion that METAR-based weather has actually been introduced without inter-station interpolation? I think we would all agree that weather depiction could always be improved, but I know of no data that suggests that Active Sky (with which I was always very satisfied) did this any better or worse than this version of MSFS. From what I have seen over the past day, the appearance of the weather in MSFS seems superior to anything I remember seeing before in a flight sim, but that's just to my eye. YMMV.

Some folks want dead accurate METAR depictions, while others want weather that's fully immersive. It may be that Asobo's stated reluctance to open the weather depiction engine in MSFS to 3PD is that it is deeply embedded in some Azure server somewhere. MSFS is nothing like FSX/P3D/XP in that regard, so it wouldn't be a surprise if weather and landscape depiction remain closely held within the MSFS product itself for the entire life of the project.

 

2 hours ago, NightOfDreams said:

I love the Turbo Arrow IV, mostly the only plane I fly. Let us know how your weather is! 

Yeah it's such a great aircraft. It's a fantastic add on.

One abrupt change moments after take-off and nothing else dramatic to report after that. Mostly clear skies the rest of the way. Didn't notice a change on arrival. 

We had people screeching for localized weather that matched hour old METAR data to a "T", and they got their way. Hopefully Asobo can improve the interpolation/depiction in the future. My biggest gripe is the haze/fog. The actual depiction is fantastic, but the fact that it morphs in and out kills any immersion that it might've otherwise introduced. Luckily I haven't seen this happening with anything but the fog/haze. As long as they tweak this I think I'll be OK. It's just annoying and a littler discouraging right now. 

1 hour ago, Tom_L said:

It's likely they've mixed MSL with AGL, so the higher your airport, the lower the cloud base.

All the clouds are so low now 😞 And a thick fog can suddenly appear from nowhere.
Asobo please let us return to the old live weather system. This is garbage.

 

 

 

 

42 minutes ago, sidfadc said:

Isn't this what Active Sky did so well in FSX/P3D?

ActiveSky did this, yes. It didn’t do it perfectly and it didn’t do it seamlessly. The weather depiction in FSX/P3D was, to be blunt, so primitive compared with MSFS that significant issues with that blending were masked.

I think we’re in an “uncanny valley” situation with MSFS precisely because the weather depiction is so convincing, without the need for suspension of disbelief FSX/P3D billboard clouds required, that the issues this hybrid system introduced are just that much more impossible to ignore. Unfortunately.

I too have experienced the sudden change in weather. Just the once so far, but I've only had time for a handful of short flights since SU7, especially as my CPU is suddenly overheating whilst MSFS is running since the update and causing instant shutdowns.🙄

I had been flying in nearly clear skies with light, fluffy clouds, but about one mile from touchdown the clouds suddenly turned to a thick and dark covering. The change was as sudden as when you start a flight with default clear skies and then switch to live weather before take-off.

From the few flights I've taken so far it appears that the basic items such as cloud bases and winds are indeed far more accurate.  I've also been assigned some appropriate runways for once.

HOWEVER...  Now visibility is all screwed up.  It's as though everything is reduced to a max of 10 NM and everything has additional haze and fog.  Looks like they are incorrectly interpreting the metar visibility report for the US to be exactly 10 NM instead of a min. of 10 - this has really screwed up a couple of flights.  Flying into my home airport today they had winds and clouds close to RW but then they added fog below the overcast.  With temps below freezing this means I accumulated icing where there should have been none.  The ceiling was really 3700' and I was at 3000'.  There was no fog here below the overcast - that's really a screw-up.

4 hours ago, NightOfDreams said:

Earlier this year I compared Live Weather, unreal, and Rex, and found that Live Weather was the best. I didnt care if it didnt match actual live weather perfectly, it looked and felt realistic. I love seeing different weather in different directions. It irks me that they take something that works well and replace it was garbage, and we have zero control over it. That's why my mentality with MSFS is that we stream the game rather than own it; it can be yanked or shut down at any moment. Could always fall back to P3D but it's hard to go back to that after being on MSFS

It will be interesting to see how LR handle this with XPlane 12.  LR have announce that will mix metar and predictive weather.

So far the only changes I have seen with SU7 are quick changes to fog and haze, not clouds.  Overall the new haze adds a lot to MSFS, so pleased with that.

2 hours ago, sightseer said:

The tower tells him current weather...

Wouldn't the tower be reading the latest metar if it had only been recently updated?  You contact tower with 'we have bravo' and they reply 'current weather is charlie' then read it out if they have time.

3 hours ago, Flyfaster_MTN002 said:

When you see scattered clouds and unlimited visibility... and the METAR is reporting OVC800 with mist it is a fairly big issue...

Well that did happen some but it was usually much more accurate then that.  I would take the predictive weather over Pop-in metar weather all day long.

I will add my name to the list of those unhappy with the SU7 live weather implementation. I could like it better if it the depicted weather actually matched the metar, but, after testing a flight out of YVR where the latest metar, both in sim and online, showed broken clouds at 1800 feet, the sim placed broken clouds at ground level which is only a few feet ASL at YVR. How that is more accurate, is beyond me.

I am also seeing  random areas of low cloud and fog where there are none in real life and none listed in the metars.

Being able to fly on a long flight through varying weather conditions with no transitions was one of the things I most liked most about MSFS. I'd prefer keeping to the original predictive live weather and getting access in the sim to "simulated" metars based on the actual weather in the sim. Another solution would be to provide an option to use the previous predictive model or the predictive/metar based model with a switch in the UI.

3 hours ago, sidfadc said:

Isn't this what Active Sky did so well in FSX/P3D?

Well, for a system that solely based on METAR stations.

But where there are none it left a lot to be desired because of the limitations of the core system behind it.

14 minutes ago, turnandbank said:

I will add my name to the list of those unhappy with the SU7 live weather implementation. I could like it better if it the depicted weather actually matched the metar, but, after testing a flight out of YVR where the latest metar, both in sim and online, showed broken clouds at 1800 feet, the sim placed broken clouds at ground level which is only a few feet ASL at YVR. How that is more accurate, is beyond me.

I am also seeing  random areas of low cloud and fog where there are none in real life and none listed in the metars.

Being able to fly on a long flight through varying weather conditions with no transitions was one of the things I most liked most about MSFS. I'd prefer keeping to the original predictive live weather and getting access in the sim to "simulated" metars based on the actual weather in the sim. Another solution would be to provide an option to use the previous predictive model or the predictive/metar based model with a switch in the UI.

I think this is because they've mixed up AGL and MSL in terms of METAR reports. Probably why there is excessive fog/haze everywhere. 

But  YVR where I was testing sea level and ground level are within a few feet of each other, so it must be something more than that.

This is what I see everywhere.  Haze and more haze.