FWIW, I'm flying in the Bahamas now (MYNN) with live weather and there are lightning and I can hear thunder.

1 hour ago, lwt1971 said:

that is a most ridiculous statement given what we've gotten in the sim.

As the person who authored the phrase you're quoting, I can assure you that, based on "enhancements" post SU7, weather is absolutely lacking. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks like that. And, without knowing your background, those who share my opinion have authentic and educated knowledge regarding weather. If the current state of things suits you well, then... congrats! enjoy the sim. We definitely have different expectations.

1 hour ago, lwt1971 said:

and so is expecting us to lobby MS/Asobo to open up access.

Really?  I wonder why they are now seriously considering it, when previously they had no intention of opening it up?  It seems in the video that the public feedback and support for it was significant, relentless, and a factor?  In my several years in add-on development, I've seen public feedback have dramatic influence on decisions by the developers.  It certainly has been the primary driving factor for HiFi's development decisions.  But maybe you're right and it doesn't matter at all and we should just stop advocating entirely for this and maybe everything else.  Or maybe not?

Agree almost entirely on your other points.

Edited May 24, 20233 yr by Damian Clark

13 hours ago, willy647 said:

This site shows lightnings around the world

https://www.blitzortung.org/en/live_lightning_maps.php

 

 

Yup, and if they can manage to put live traffic into the sim, there's no reason why Asobo couldn't somehow integrate the live lightning into the sim, (or allow some other dev to integrate it). This would ALSO allow the live weather know where to put towering cumulus and yes, thunderstorms and supercells (by simply knowing where lightning is, couple with some other factors).

This site is good too: https://www.lightningmaps.org/#m=oss;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=;ts=0;y=0.0879;x=0.0879;z=3;

Edited May 24, 20233 yr by KERNEL32

I can provide an example of my definition of "static" atmosphere of the "old simulators" given that we are apparently forbidden to name them.

Airport XXXX metar has a report of wind from 21005KT: in the old simulators we have a wind of 21005KT without the minimum single variation.

In MSFS if you have a wind of 21005KT you have at least some variation both in intensity and wind speed: this variation is poorly implemented? Yes, I think so, but it makes weather much more realistic.

You can just check some real life videos on youtube and you find out that wind is never the EXACT wind the METAR reports for a number of different reasons.

This is just an example and the same can be said for cloud coverage and the other parameters.

 

Edited May 25, 20233 yr by Jeeeno

18 minutes ago, Jeeeno said:

I can provide an example of my definition of "static" atmosphere of the "old simulators" given that we are apparently forbidden to name them.

Airport XXXX metar has a report of wind from 21005KT: in the old simulators we have a wind of 21005KT without the minimum single variation.

In MSFS if you have a wind of 21005KT you have at least some variation both in intensity and wind speed: this variation is poorly implemented? Yes, I think so, but it makes weather much more realistic.

You can just check some real life videos on youtube and you find out that wind is never the EXACT wind the METAR reports for a number of different reasons.

This is just an example and the same can be said for cloud coverage and the other parameters.

 

There was actually a lot more going on with at least one of the weather injectors I used with fsx, xplane and p3d. For sure there was variability even if not mentioned on the METAR by a dddVddd unit, not to mention special effects at some airports known to have some tricky weather factors...

Then other kinds of weather variability were equally experienced when flying aloft and away from METAR scope, with reference to grib data as well as sigmet, radar, SAT, and TAF for destination...

Edited May 25, 20233 yr by jcomm

I think the Live Weather has come a long way, but there’s still work to be done. Longing to see some towering CBs 🙂

I would highly recommend everyone vote for the 3 relevant topics below. The votes seem to influence Asobo’s roadmap given their wish list/bug snapshots are ranked by these. More votes = more likely we will see some developers allocated to improving weather…
 

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/improve-clouds-in-live-weather/593028/50

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/metar-keeps-disrupting-the-weather-bugged-weather-cumulus-cb-clouds-only-no-medium-to-high-cloud-coverage/487587/1447

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/where-are-the-thunder-and-lightning/478677/267

1 hour ago, ah2511 said:

The votes seem to influence Asobo’s roadmap given their wish list/bug snapshots are ranked by these. More votes = more likely we will see some developers allocated to improving weather…

The VATSim crowd harvesting votes for METAR led us to this point in the first place, Asobo bent over without thoroughly testing the changes beforehand so hence we got a massive downgrade in SU7. So be careful what you wish for...

Edited May 25, 20233 yr by MarcG

15 minutes ago, MarcG said:

we got a massive downgrade in SU7

What do you mean?

20 minutes ago, MarcG said:

The VATSim crowd harvesting votes for METAR led us to this point in the first place, Asobo bent over without thoroughly testing the changes beforehand so hence we got a massive downgrade in SU7. So be careful what you wish for...

It's not black or white: the weather before SU7 was nice but it was miles off what metar reported. It's ok to have some variations, but not completely wrong weather. 

6 minutes ago, Jeeeno said:

It's not black or white: the weather before SU7 was nice but it was miles off what metar reported. It's ok to have some variations, but not completely wrong weather. 

Except what do you do when the latest weather is out of date, or when there was a recent rain downpour. METARs lack the accuracy and data to rightfully fuel a weather engine. Even TAFs would be a bit better

16 minutes ago, MarcG said:

The VATSim crowd harvesting votes for METAR led us to this point in the first place, Asobo bent over without thoroughly testing the changes beforehand so hence we got a massive downgrade in SU7. So be careful what you wish for...

Right, although I get where Asobo "intended to go" the live weather engine simply was or is not ready for he metar integration. That is obvious (pop in clouds, circular rain echoes around METAR areas on radar, etc).

The "original" live weather on release was organic, realistic looking and was really good, yes it needed some improvements but I agree that the live weather went backwards after around Su5 (there were changes made I assume to integrate with xbox? that degraded the weather output) then SU7 (METAR integration) was the final blow.

1 hour ago, ErichB said:

What do you mean?

Well for one there were thunderstorms, the weather was more dynamic with better cloud variations, there was no METAR "bubbles" nonsense and the main point was it was a rushed implementation without thorough forethought or testing. 

4 minutes ago, MarcG said:

Well for one there were thunderstorms, the weather was more dynamic with better cloud variations, there was no METAR "bubbles" nonsense and the main point was it was a rushed implementation without thorough forethought or testing. 

There are thunderstorms now, did you miss my post on top of this page? 

Regarding what you call metar "bubbles", before the metar integration you would load a flight in an airport, push the metar and the weather would have nothing to do with it, like metar reporting overcast and you would see clear skies. Do you really think that is more realistic than what we have now?

2 hours ago, Alvega said:

There are thunderstorms now, did you miss my post on top of this page? 

Regarding what you call metar "bubbles", before the metar integration you would load a flight in an airport, push the metar and the weather would have nothing to do with it, like metar reporting overcast and you would see clear skies. Do you really think that is more realistic than what we have now?

Yes there are but not anywhere near as good as they used to be pre-SU7 (counties threads on this subject alone), regarding the bubbles they've existed since SU7....which was released in November 2021, it's taking far far too long to improve from what they had before. Sure we didn't have METAR, but it worked well enough compared to real weather, again they did not integrate and test thoroughly enough before bringing out in game - that much is very clear