Can anyone tell me what determines if snow will be displayed in MSFS particularly with Rex Weather Force?  I've done a few flights with it and all of them have had snow on the ground regardless if snow was in the metar.  One of the flights I had snow from Chicago to Florida.  Someone told me it was a bug with Rex but I wasn't sure exactly how it is determined if snow will be showing.  Thanks!

Not sure about Rex but with default weather it uses a data source for worldwide snow coverage though in my experience the snow depth is rendered a bit lower than in real life.

1 hour ago, Zimmerbz said:

Can anyone tell me what determines if snow will be displayed in MSFS particularly with Rex Weather Force?  I've done a few flights with it and all of them have had snow on the ground regardless if snow was in the metar.  One of the flights I had snow from Chicago to Florida.  Someone told me it was a bug with Rex but I wasn't sure exactly how it is determined if snow will be showing.  Thanks!

I spoke about this allot.  Once you're in snow using REX it doesn't dissipate as you fly south.  REX is all or nothing in how it depicts weather and snow.  Do to lack of info in the SDK REX can't adjust snow once it's depicted on the ground.  

20 minutes ago, Dillon said:

I spoke about this allot.  Once you're in snow using REX it doesn't dissipate as you fly south.  REX is all or nothing in how it depicts weather and snow.  Do to lack of info in the SDK REX can't adjust snow once it's depicted on the ground.  

ok.  That stinks.  I guess if I fly south I'll use the default.  Hopefully it can get fixed soon!

10 minutes ago, Zimmerbz said:

ok.  That stinks.  I guess if I fly south I'll use the default.  Hopefully it can get fixed soon!

Not unless Asobo adds more info to the SDK for the weather engine.

Edited January 5, 20224 yr by Dillon

I would like to clear up a misconception here in this post.

REX does have control over the snow rendering within the simulator. However, it is a matter of finetuning our algorithm on our servers that determines when to show snow vs when to cause it to dissipate during flight.

From a high-level view of the process, we look at the following to determine if snow should be rendered, not rendered, or dissipate if moving out of a region of snow.

The easiest part is rendering snow if it is currently snowing at the aircraft's position at an airport. In this scenario we utilize the metar data.

The hard part is rendering snow on the ground if it snowed in the past, but not currently snowing. This is where we are still finetuning our code. Metar data does not store this information, so we have to sort of guess based upon previous snow fall and average temperatures during a period of time. We are close to getting it right, but obviously we are not there yet.  Thankfully, this is performed on the back end and is immediately passed to the customer once it is working properly.

 

1 hour ago, Dillon said:

Once you're in snow using REX it doesn't dissipate as you fly south.  REX is all or nothing in how it depicts weather and snow.  Do to lack of info in the SDK REX can't adjust snow once it's depicted on the ground.  

Debunked☝️ .... Lol 

Reed,

Your work towards proper snow rendering is working. 👍 Here's my quote from a post regarding this yesterday.  Also contrary to Dillon's experience as I flew from central NY state into PA the ground coverage of snow became lightly scattered until it disappeared completely going south.  

REX has been completely SUPERIOR to MSFS weather. I am using SU7 beta.  Yesterday, I was sitting at an air field with windy.com reporting 1 inch of snow depth.  METAR  was BKN at 12000 and OVC at 20000.  Both apps reported temp and altimeter accurately.  Skies from MSFS were partly cloudy with sun shining (NO snow on ground), and  REX skies were properly OVC and ground showing excellent light covering of snow with beautiful low light conditions as one would expect to see. 

I am NOT saying REX is ALWAYS better then MSFS, but when I want to fly and  Live WX is wrong, I immediately load REX and can still enjoy a proper VATSIM flight.👍

I'm not saying this is a Rex thing or an MSFS thing, but all i can tell you is that i flew from ORD-RSW yesterday and for the first time had snow on the ground in Florida.  This isn't a knock on anyone or any software, just saying my experience.  It could also have been user error but I am pretty certain I followed all of the correct steps.  

I flew this morning from Buffalo to Binghamton NY with default live weather and the snow depiction was almost perfect. There was substantial snow on the ground at BUF and up to the hills southeast of town. As I flew farther south the snow cover became more and more patchy and ceased entirely about 30 miles southeast. That very accurately depicts the actual snow accumulation that exists right now in this area.

2 minutes ago, Zimmerbz said:

I'm not saying this is a Rex thing or an MSFS thing, but all i can tell you is that i flew from ORD-RSW yesterday and for the first time had snow on the ground in Florida.  This isn't a knock on anyone or any software, just saying my experience.  It could also have been user error but I am pretty certain I followed all of the correct steps.  

By any chance are you running the experimental terrain masking from Bijan Studio ?  If not, I'm certain you saw the snow in FLA but have no clue how it was rendered.  I've never seen it. 

Just now, vcarlo said:

By any chance are you running the experimental terrain masking from Bijan Studio ?  If not, I'm certain you saw the snow in FLA but have no clue how it was rendered.  I've never seen it. 

I'm running Bijan Season Pack but I have no idea if there is any sort of experimental terrain masking.  How would i know if I am?

1 minute ago, Zimmerbz said:

I'm running Bijan Season Pack but I have no idea if there is any sort of experimental terrain masking.  How would i know if I am?

In your Community folder you would have a folder titled "Bijan Terrain Masks NH - Experimental - Read known issues"

1 minute ago, vcarlo said:

In your Community folder you would have a folder titled "Bijan Terrain Masks NH - Experimental - Read known issues"

Ok.  I don't have that in there.  Just the winter NH pack and the 3d Trees

22 hours ago, rstough said:

I would like to clear up a misconception here in this post.

REX does have control over the snow rendering within the simulator. However, it is a matter of finetuning our algorithm on our servers that determines when to show snow vs when to cause it to dissipate during flight.

From a high-level view of the process, we look at the following to determine if snow should be rendered, not rendered, or dissipate if moving out of a region of snow.

The easiest part is rendering snow if it is currently snowing at the aircraft's position at an airport. In this scenario we utilize the metar data.

The hard part is rendering snow on the ground if it snowed in the past, but not currently snowing. This is where we are still finetuning our code. Metar data does not store this information, so we have to sort of guess based upon previous snow fall and average temperatures during a period of time. We are close to getting it right, but obviously we are not there yet.  Thankfully, this is performed on the back end and is immediately passed to the customer once it is working properly.

 

So I flew from Vegas to LAX today.  Taking off from Vegas over the desert was fine but as I got further southwest to LAX, snow started to cover the entire ground.  Any reason why that would be?  Thanks!