I've been pleased with snow cover that I've seen in the sim so far. Of course, that is against the very low bar of winter looking like a mid-summer day as it did before. You have to start somewhere. There is vast opportunity for realism improvement just in the environmental appearance in the sim. There does tend to be a homogeneous feel to everything that seems beautiful yet unnatural. Especially when you get to fall and winter.

22 hours ago, bigifooti said:

I've read somewhere a while a go that MSFS also uses a lower limit of somthing like ~0.3m (don't know the exact value).

So there must be more than x cm snow before it shows up in MSFS. 

Ok, but as you can see from the map from meteoblue, in this specific case there are meters of snow. I think that in some area this option is not working, like unenabled

Just finished a flght from "mazermart" 's CYPQ Peterborough, Ontario to his CNF4 Lindsay (where we lived for ~35 years), and checking the METAR  https://metar-taf.com/CYPQ for the area in-flight - it was spot on - ceiling 400', overcast and mist, with vis at 3 miles. The ground cover was/is - some remaining snow, farm land - patchy snow, with the runways moderately cleared - all very well done. Flying the Carenado 172 - which is not a 'bad' aircraft - this is the type of "very-real-world" experience that is keeping me in this sim. Only VR could have made it better.    

Edited January 13, 20224 yr by Paul J

Flights over MD, PA and NY the past few days have been very nice.  Spotty snow coverage throughout with some areas having more coverage than others.  Very nice to look at from above.  If they can only find a way to fix the snow-covered roads/runways. In the patchy snow areas you could see green grass but white roads.  It's usually the opposite where roads clear first and the grass would show last.  Has anyone else noticed the night lighting looks better when there is snow on the ground?  They pop a bit more and look more 'real-world' to me.  Not sure if it is the light reflecting more off of the snow or not....nice effect though!

Edited January 13, 20224 yr by Flic1

Do you all remember seeing that sales video MS showed before the product was available for sale showing the plane flying south over Manhattan into a snowstorm? It actually showed the snow accumulating on the ground as the plane flew along, if I remember right. Hope we eventually get that.

I also see all the ground, roads, runways, parking ramps at the airports snow covered. There is no plowing being done.

Snowplows coming down the road would be better than tanker trucks coming down the runways . . . . .    😎

On 1/11/2022 at 4:26 PM, Dillon said:

Check this website to show you where real world snow coverage is:

Weather Maps | Live Satellite & Weather Radar - meteoblue

Asobo did well here to only have snow where it is present in the real world.  The only time it's not working is when the weather system is down like everyday around 6pm - 7:15pm.

Well yesterday I flew into Iowa City Muni (KIOW) and what a test.  The runway was snow covered with underlying runway detail just slightly bleeding through.  Very difficult to pick the runway out even on short final.  Roll out a real test to discern the runway.  Then......  Drum Roll......  The taxiways were mostly clear of snow, as if they had been plowed.  Seriously?  ROFLMAO!  An airport would clear the taxiways but not the runways????

I depart Iowa City today for St Louis Spirit (KSUS) and will be using whatever weather preset is the best depiction of current weather until enroute when I will switch to Live Weather.

21 hours ago, Flic1 said:

Flights over MD, PA and NY the past few days have been very nice.  Spotty snow coverage throughout with some areas having more coverage than others.  Very nice to look at from above. 

Agree.  Bet it looked like this yesterday over NW Illinois.  I found this very realistic.  Much better depiction than I found the other day over Indiana (earlier screenshot in this topic).

Had a flight in Germany last night (EDDF-EDDL) higher parts of a region called "Sauerland" where covered with snow like actual in the real world. 

Very well done by Asobo! 

This worked surprisingly well. We recently got snow, and live weather even days past when the storm came through represented snow on the ground while depicting the weather accurately. 

Edited January 14, 20224 yr by styckx

And all you prising guys do not fly over regions with unrealistically frozen lakes I assume, otherwise I dont get how one can be happy with the current implementation of snow coverage...

I flew from LFSB to LOWS today and the snow coverage was okay, i.e. there was snow where it‘s supposed to be but the transitions between deep snow and no snow were too abrupt and the coverage looked less accurate and detailed than on the Meteoblue map when zoomed in. It looked more like when you zoom out on said map. Especially from high altitudes it didn‘t look very natural.

1 hour ago, Shack95 said:

I flew from LFSB to LOWS today and the snow coverage was okay,

What about the lakes? All frozen over I guess...