Visibility in Live Weather Mode

[Falconjet112 40]

It's time we had a dedicated 'visibility in live weather mode' thread!

I'm a IRL pilot. Live weather is excellent however ever since launch, visibility in live weather mode is always unlimited. Visibility never changes!

I'm fed up of flying in almost unlimited visibility. 

Surely by now, visibility from the meteoblue model can be implemented in the SIM in live weather mode. Everything else (clouds, winds, temperatures) is! 

Please Asobo, model visibility changes in the atmosphere in live weather mode! 

I've created a thread in the MS forum: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/visibility-in-live-weather-mode/528186

[jrw4 626]

That's odd. Do you have any specific example? I just used https://www.badbadweather.com/visibility/K to find a US airport (KMCI) with poor visibility and spawned the PMDG 737 on one of the runways. The observed visibility was plausibly the 1.25 sm reported in the METAR.

It sounds like you are getting real weather in the METAR, so it's hard to understand why you're not seeing the corresponding visibility. Suffice it to say, yours doesn't seem to be a universal experience. Perhaps some more specific observations and a screen shot or two might help.

[Bobsk8 12,917]

I am a real life pilot too plus many  hundreds of thousands of miles on commercial flights. , and vis is usually pretty realistic. 

[turnandbank 245]

I'm not seeing this issue either. 

[ThomseN_inc 1,128]

1 hour ago, Falconjet112 said:

It's time we had a dedicated 'visibility in live weather mode' thread!

I'm a IRL pilot. Live weather is excellent however ever since launch, visibility in live weather mode is always unlimited. Visibility never changes!

I'm fed up of flying in almost unlimited visibility. 

Surely by now, visibility from the meteoblue model can be implemented in the SIM in live weather mode. Everything else (clouds, winds, temperatures) is! 

Please Asobo, model visibility changes in the atmosphere in live weather mode! 

I've created a thread in the MS forum: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/visibility-in-live-weather-mode/528186

Totally agree! Once you're up a certain altitude you always have visibility from horizon to horizon in the sim.

I miss those humid days when you barely see anything descending down into the smog.

I remember flying over China and barely got to see anything for hours due to haze.

[KERNEL32 511]

I somewhat agree with the OP. All the METARS in USA are 10SM, unless for some reason it is less then it is represented in the SIM. Otherwise visibility is pretty much unlimited (outside of METAR areas and outside of rain bands).

There is an air quality issue is more what I think is missing/broken. Hot humid days are not represented well, nor are smog/smoke and other air quality factors.

I cannot sit at a large city airport such as KMIA and see every star in the night sky in the real world on pretty much any given night (due to light pollution and usual high humidity especially this time of the year). Yet in MSFS I can see every star in the galaxy.

Like most meteorology related items in MSFS, air quality / visibility needs quite a bit of work yet IMO. 

[ThomseN_inc 1,128]

6 minutes ago, KERNEL32 said:

I somewhat agree with the OP. All the METARS in USA are 10SM, unless for some reason it is less then it is represented in the SIM. Otherwise visibility is pretty much unlimited (outside of METAR areas and outside of rain bands).

There is an air quality issue is more what I think is missing/broken. Hot humid days are not represented well, nor are smog/smoke and other air quality factors.

I cannot sit at a large city airport such as KMIA and see every star in the night sky in the real world on pretty much any given night (due to light pollution and usual high humidity especially this time of the year). Yet in MSFS I can see every star in the galaxy.

Like most meteorology related items in MSFS, air quality / visibility needs quite a bit of work yet IMO. 

Aren't METAR including info about Temperature and dewpoint? Which if i recall correctly might be taken into account when depicting visibility in MSFS.

[Sky_Pilot071 583]

Vis issues are supposed to be addressed in S10 I thought.

sp

[jrw4 626]

I'm unclear how MSFS or any other flight sim, etc., can assess local visibility without information from the corresponding airport METAR. In FAA land, the METAR visibility peaks at 10 statute miles, i.e., anything over 10 is still reported as 10. If I understand ICAO reports correctly, they max out at 10 km, above which the report is 9999. How does a flight simulator obtain accurate visibility data absent such information in the METARs? Where are such reports published?

 

PS Although humidity and visibility are correlated, another critical component in this equation is aerosol composition and density. Measuring these parameters and deducing their relationship to observed visibility is very much a subject of ongoing research.

Edited July 3, 2022 by jrw4
added PS

[MrBitstFlyer 3,901]

1 hour ago, ThomseN_inc said:

Totally agree! Once you're up a certain altitude you always have visibility from horizon to horizon in the sim.

I miss those humid days when you barely see anything descending down into the smog.

I remember flying over China and barely got to see anything for hours due to haze.

Rex WeatherForce deals with the visibility issue.

[ThomseN_inc 1,128]

21 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Rex WeatherForce deals with the visibility issue.

Yeah i know. But i'd prefer MSFS doing it 😉

[jrw4 626]

Didn't we go down this path some months ago when so many of us were unhappy about the constant haze? I'm sure that Rex WF does it "right" at times, but is it always representative of the actual conditions?

Have a Happy Independence Day everyone.