Permanent snow at NZMF

[brucewtb 250]

I note that with live weather there is still permanent snow at NZMF (Milford Sound New Zealand) unchanged for the past 6 months at least.  Is this such a hard thing to fix?  For the record the current weather at Milford according to the NZ Met Service is plus 17 deg C, no rain (I know hard to believe) and partly cloudy!

Bruceb

[JRBarrett 3,129]

One of the problems might be that New Zealand restricts the external distribution of METAR data for all but the largest airports in the country (NZAA, NZWN and NZCH) MeteoBlue may not have access to actual weather data for NZMF.

[AnkH 2,282]

The other issue still ignored by the devs is that they use meteoblue snow coverage in the lowest possible resolution. If you check the meteoblue snow coverage map, you will realize that there is a constant blob of snow on the southern island of NZ, only disappearing if you zoom in. Sadly, using this low res snow coverage results in ridicously wrong snow coverage in the sim in various regions, e.g. all of the Alps in Europe... rendering the use of live weather in all those regions obsolete...

[harrry 322]

2 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

One of the problems might be that New Zealand restricts the external distribution of METAR data for all but the largest airports in the country (NZAA, NZWN and NZCH) MeteoBlue may not have access to actual weather data for NZMF.

Where do you get that from.  If so can you explain this: https://metar-taf.com/country/NZ?page=6

[JBDB-MD80 1,489]

3 hours ago, brucewtb said:

  Is this such a hard thing to fix? 

According to Asobo yes and they feel its not a priority stated in their last QnA. I'm pretty perplexed myself.

Edited April 6, 2022 by jbdbow1970

[markadeane 274]

1 hour ago, harrry said:

Where do you get that from.  If so can you explain this: https://metar-taf.com/country/NZ?page=6

He's right. Those aren't METAR-based weather reports. In fact many of those aerodromes don't have METARs

NZAA NZWN and NZCH are the only publicly available METAR stations in NZ. There are many more METAR stations of course, but access to them is through the Pilot Weather Breifing system called Metflight. Access is issued primarily to pilot license holders.

[JRBarrett 3,129]

7 hours ago, harrry said:

Where do you get that from.  If so can you explain this: https://metar-taf.com/country/NZ?page=6

If you pick an airport from that site and scroll down to see where the METAR actually comes from, you will see that it is the METAR of one of the three or four international airports in New Zealand that do report current METAR data on the worldwide ICAO data feed.

The “supposed” METAR on that web site for NZMF (Milford Sound) is actually the METAR for Christchurch (NZCH) which is over 200 miles away.

New Zealand, although a member of the WMO (World Meteorological Organization), nevertheless restricts external access to meteorological data. It is considered to be the proprietary intellectual property of the government. Use of the data for any commercial purpose requires the payment of substantial fees.

New Zealand licensed pilots can obtain METARS for non-international airports in the country, but they can only do so from a computer which is physically located within New Zealand, and they have to register with the NZ Met office.

[YouDontKnow 93]

So, is this intellectual property covering only the Metar? Not the satellite observation?

[Shack95 2,666]

8 hours ago, jbdbow1970 said:

According to Asobo yes and they feel its not a priority stated in their last QnA. I'm pretty perplexed myself.

I wonder if it‘s a cost issue, i.e. if the more accurate data that Meteoblue provides is too expensive.

[JRBarrett 3,129]

1 hour ago, YouDontKnow said:

So, is this intellectual property covering only the Metar? Not the satellite observation?

Satellite data comes from space. No individual county has control of that.

[JRBarrett 3,129]

57 minutes ago, Shack95 said:

I wonder if it‘s a cost issue, i.e. if the more accurate data that Meteoblue provides is too expensive.

New Zealand is rather unique in this regard. Few WMO signatory countries restrict weather data as NZ does. Nothing to do with MeteoBlue. If MeteoBlue provides subscription weather forecasting services for real aviation interests, they might be able to provide expanded data for NZ (if they have a license from NZ to do so), but they would not be able to use it in MSFS. Other weather engines like ActiveSky have the same problem. The only current METARS for NZ they can provide are the 3 international NZ airports that do provide data to all interested parties.

[mwilk 1,107]

FWIW, I tried NZMF with Rex Weatherforce 2020 and there was no snow on the ground. With Live Weather in MSFS there was, as you said. The reporting station was Christchurch for Rex. It showed NCD in the metar but there were clouds in the sim.

[markadeane 274]

I wonder if Meteoblue is imposing some sub-Antarctic/Antarctic weather stations into the mix here. If you fly south from NZMF along the coast with live weather activated, you can see pack ice hugging the Fiordland coast in places. There hasn't been pack ice along the Fiordland coast for quite a while now...

[Kilo60 660]

14 hours ago, jbdbow1970 said:

According to Asobo yes and they feel it's not a priority stated in their last QnA. I'm pretty perplexed myself.

 

Utterly unacceptable!!!

[Adamski_NZ 968]

9 hours ago, mwilk said:

FWIW, I tried NZMF with Rex Weatherforce 2020 and there was no snow on the ground. With Live Weather in MSFS there was, as you said. The reporting station was Christchurch for Rex. It showed NCD in the metar but there were clouds in the sim.

Exactly the same here. Interestingly though - the snow in Live Weather only seems to get applied in the immediate vicinity of the airport - anything beyond 1km away (and even higher mountains) doesn't get snow. Looks like a coding issue to me.