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?

Exactly. This is why MSFS was unusable by VATSIM users. Now MSFS can be used on VATSIM and the other ATC networks.  For VATSIM users, live weather has improved a lot since the start of MSFS.

Just now, abrams_tank said:

Exactly. This is why MSFS was unusable by VATSIM users. Now MSFS can be used on VATSIM and the other ATC networks.  For VATSIM users, live weather has improved a lot since the start of MSFS.

But it hasn't improved for other users, that's the point, this Sim isn't all about VATSim users remember 😉

Sure they've worked on it since SU7 but there's no denying they've made a complete mess of it, the evidence is clear.

7 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

Exactly. This is why MSFS was unusable by VATSIM users. Now MSFS can be used on VATSIM and the other ATC networks.  For VATSIM users, live weather has improved a lot since the start of MSFS.

Not only for VATSIM users, I don't use VATSIM and I also think it has improved.

19 hours ago, Damian Clark said:

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.

Well I meant just the avsim crowd... but given that the wishlist item is #4 on the all-time list https://www.flightsimulator.com/feedback-snapshot/ (actual request: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/open-up-the-weather-system-write-access-to-3rd-party-devs/266706, 1159 votes) it certainly is popular outside of avsim, and given what Jorg mentioned on the recent Q&A hopefully it changes from "Not planned" to something more tangible soon. The fact that it has been in "Not planned" looks likely not due to lack of popularity, so they must've had other reasons some of which Jorg alluded to in the call.
 

Edited May 25, 20233 yr by lwt1971

I really don't get why people say weather was good before they introduced METARs: there was hardly ever the correct weather at the airport, why it was better?

10 minutes ago, Jeeeno said:

I really don't get why people say weather was good before they introduced METARs: there was hardly ever the correct weather at the airport, why it was better?

OFC it wasn't better, and METAR weather was fundamental to bring weather depiction to much more realistic values.

 

7 minutes ago, Jeeeno said:

I really don't get why people say weather was good before they introduced METARs: there was hardly ever the correct weather at the airport, why it was better?

I matched live weather just fine pre-SU7, used windy.com and the winds were matching, rain, clouds (albeit not all the types of course), thunderstorms & hurricanes all there as per real life.

Whether or not it was "fully correct" at the airport didn't matter that much to me, I'm not one to need perfect matching conditions, as long as it was 'close enough' that was fine by me....but then METAR update came along and the rest is history!

That's not too say it's the same as SU7 now, says they've obviously worked on it but IMO it's still not back to what it was like. Hopefully they'll get there but I don't have much confidence in the team, they do what M$ tell them to do.

11 minutes ago, MarcG said:

I matched live weather just fine pre-SU7, used windy.com and the winds were matching, rain, clouds (albeit not all the types of course), thunderstorms & hurricanes all there as per real life.

Whether or not it was "fully correct" at the airport didn't matter that much to me, I'm not one to need perfect matching conditions, as long as it was 'close enough' that was fine by me....but then METAR update came along and the rest is history!

That's not too say it's the same as SU7 now, says they've obviously worked on it but IMO it's still not back to what it was like. Hopefully they'll get there but I don't have much confidence in the team, they do what M$ tell them to do.

It didn't work fine at all. Official sources for airports are METARs not windy.com. 

5 minutes ago, Jeeeno said:

It didn't work fine at all. Official sources for airports are METARs not windy.com. 

Read my post again 🙂

26 minutes ago, MarcG said:

Whether or not it was "fully correct" at the airport didn't matter that much to me

Most times it wasn't even close.

2 minutes ago, Alvega said:

Most times it wasn't even close.

Ok I'll agree to disagree 🙂

20 minutes ago, MarcG said:

Ok I'll agree to disagree 🙂

For VATSIM and other ATC network users, it wasn't even close. Now it is close for VATSIM users.

matching METAR is important for flight planning in general.

Edited May 25, 20233 yr by Tuskin38

METAR says 'KSPG 252005Z 33005G14KT 1 3/4SM +TSRA SCT033 BKN050 OVC065 24/19 A2972 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT NE AND E P0009 T02440194'

 

and yet a circle of clear sky around the airport

5 hours ago, jcomm said:

OFC it wasn't better, and METAR weather was fundamental to bring weather depiction to much more realistic values.

 

Erm....... hopefully it won't get your back up too much to have 'realistic' questioned and 'compliant' offered as an alternative. I think you know better than most of us how horribly off the mark metar can be, and when you have such a density of unreliable and conflicting weather reports as there are flying over the US or EU, it really is a recipe for a very 'unrealistic' flight simulation, even if the start and finish generally match the local metar. Possibly immersive for process simmers, but not for many others. Frankly, the most satisfying and consistent (I hesitate to say 'realistic') weather I get is over the Middle East or Africa, I'm guessing precisely because of the dearth of metar.

As for OP topic, I do see thunder storms fairly regularly over central Africa and Australia, but not much elsewhere. Certainly something off about it and I hope and trust it's on a bucket list somewhere of improvements. And on that, I do hope someone from MS/Asobo will give us some clear signals pretty soon that improvements are coming for weather. There's been a lot of dissatisfaction voiced on pretty much every platform about clouds and weather since SU7, but AFAIK they haven't touched it on the dev streams for a very long time.

Edited May 25, 20233 yr by scotchegg