Anyone else still finding the weather to be totally innacurate?

I mean here for example. Metar, No Clouds, Sim.....

Does it match the satellite weather? In a lot of places, like Florida or the Caribbean, storms can roll through in between METARs and never get reported as OVC.

Every so often you can come across weather that doesn't match the report in real life. 

EDIT: METAR is wrong, ASOBO is right. Current London Weather is under rainshowers. I can't upload pictures on my phone but it's grey and wet right now.

Edited March 28, 20233 yr by WestAir

It does appear to be cloudy in London today. 

Edited March 28, 20233 yr by Zangoose

Yep, overcast and raining in London, so the weather looks accurate. However, I do not trust the in-sim METAR feature as I have found it can be incorrect. I generally check the actual weather.

DA here:  unless you are practicing for a RW flight right now, why does it really matter?  I know, it would be nice/cool etc in-sim METAR actually closely matches RW, but ultimately, WHY does it matter? 

Indeed strange the history of the last "AUTO" METARs at EGLL:

METAR/SPECI from EGLL, London / Heathrow Airport (United Kingdom).SA28/03/2023 11:20->

METAR COR EGLL 281120Z AUTO 19014KT 9999 -RA FEW033 SCT047 07/05 Q1019 NOSIG=

METAR COR EGLL 281150Z AUTO 19012KT 7000 -RA FEW018/// BKN034/// BKN046/// //////TCU 07/05 Q1019 NOSIG=

METAR COR EGLL 281220Z AUTO 18011KT 9999 FEW013 SCT038 07/06 Q1018 NOSIG=

METAR EGLL 281250Z AUTO 17012KT 9999 NCD 08/05 Q1018=

METAR COR EGLL 281320Z AUTO 18011KT 9999 -RA SCT040 BKN047 08/05 Q1017 NOSIG=

METAR COR EGLL 281350Z AUTO 19010KT 160V230 9999 BKN048 09/04 Q1017 NOSIG=

Edited March 28, 20233 yr by jcomm

Probably a good example for the limitations of METAR reports, especially if they are created by automation. "NCD" is only used in automatic reports, and there are certain limitations (source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology):

The following issues should be considered when using cloud reports generated by ceilometers:

• If the ceilometer is directly under a clear patch of sky in otherwise cloudy conditions, it may result in an incorrect report of clear sky.
• If slow moving cloud remains directly above the ceilometer for a period of time, it can result in an incorrect OVC report.
• In a situation of rapid onset of broken or overcast stratus, the ceilometer observation will lag behind the actual cloud present.
• Higher layers will not be reported if they are obscured by lower cloud.

The follow-up report reads EGLL 281320Z AUTO 18011KT 9999 -RA SCT040 BKN047 08/05 Q1017 , so imho it speaks FOR the quality of the METAR blending in MSFS (although I'm not a big fan of it, but credit where credit is due) that the sim doesn't display a circle of blue sky above the airport based on a single datum, when the surrounding conditions don't warrant it.
 

I actually find MSFS weather to be very accurate most of the time - not that I really care.  Once I put on my VR headset, as long as the weather looks realistic in the sim, I am really unconcerned if it doesn't happen to match real life weather for that particular location.

So the title of this thread should rather be: "Auto reporting METAR Stations are woefully inacurate" 😉

7 hours ago, Noel said:

DA here:  unless you are practicing for a RW flight right now, why does it really matter?  I know, it would be nice/cool etc in-sim METAR actually closely matches RW, but ultimately, WHY does it matter? 

I'm not sure if the question is about why it matters for live weather to be accurate, or why it matters for the in game METAR to be accurate.

If why live weather, it's so you can use real world flight planning tools like Jepp / Foreflight / WSI / etc. (Or even the wx reporting in Navigraph.) Also, so your weather matches everyone else's on a network.

If why the in game METAR is important, well - a lot of people are using that for weather reporting, and it's certainly fair to assume that the conditions the game is reporting are the same conditions it's displaying...

8 hours ago, abennett said:

Anyone else still finding the weather to be totally innacurate?

Hyperbole and not really worthy of a response but since you asked.  No, I don’t. 
-B

Edited March 28, 20233 yr by btacon

Yeah, the weather in the sim should match the METARs that it’s now supposed to be using. The weather was lots better before they introduced METARs. And more often than not doesn’t match them anyway, so all they have achieved is making the weather system worse. If they are going to be in the sim, the sim might as well accurately represent them.

3 minutes ago, abennett said:

Yeah, the weather in the sim should match the METARs that it’s now supposed to be using. The weather was lots better before they introduced METARs. And more often than not doesn’t match them anyway, so all they have achieved is making the weather system worse. If they are going to be in the sim, the sim might as well accurately represent them.

No that's not how it works. Metars in MSFS are used for surface winds and temperature and QNH, but not for complex simulations like clouds, which - as others pointed out - cannot be depicted from metars in any reasonable way (starting with: metars only tell you where the clouds "start", not where they "end"). Therefore MSFS uses Meteoblue for the clouds. For about a year I've found weather in MSFS to be almost perfect (as in "like real life"), so not sure why you have a different experience.

Edited March 28, 20233 yr by Fiorentoni

2 minutes ago, abennett said:

Yeah, the weather in the sim should match the METARs that it’s now supposed to be using. The weather was lots better before they introduced METARs. And more often than not doesn’t match them anyway, so all they have achieved is making the weather system worse. If they are going to be in the sim, the sim might as well accurately represent them.

Have you read the thread here?  The live weather is accurately representing the real world weather, as reported by the real world METAR.  It's simply the displayed METAR in the game that is wrong.

It's completely false to say that "more often thab not" displayed weather doesn't match metars..  I literally cannot remember the last time I saw this happen.  Live weather pre-metar implementation on the other hand was almost useless, as it matched no real-world weather sources.  It was simply invented by a model run up to 12 hours ago...

I have to respectfully disagree. In my experience, wind and pressure have always matched METAR. Pre-SU7 the clouds matched the Meteoblue forecast, yes, not live, but predictable and able to be used in flight planning. However, after SU7 when METARs were introduced and were attempted to be blended into the Meteoblue forecast for more than wind and pressure, the clouds then matched neither the forecast nor the weather, and so there was absolutely no way to know what the clouds would be at the airport. Instead all we got was horrible bubbles of weather around airports and hard transitions. Yes these have been smoothed since SU7, but still the clouds don’t match the METAR nor the meteoblue forecast, both of which are supposed to be sources for the weather in sim.

Edited March 28, 20233 yr by abennett