Ok guys I can also confirm that thunder and lightning is definitely in the sim. I used a real world lightning tracker, loaded up the sim starting right where a nice storm was happening (the Bahamas in this case) and there is indeed electrical booming going on. 

58 minutes ago, Krakin said:

electrical booming

👍🏻🤩🫡

It's been over a year since I've seen lightning, but I don't usually fly into storms. If I did ever have to fly a plane (don't worry I won't ever have to), then I don't want to develop a theoretical bad habit of flying into lightning, riding the lightning, or lightning coming into the cockpit. No thanks, I'll pass.

 
 

15 hours ago, scotchegg said:

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.

Unfortunately the weather related threads in the official forums tend to follow a certain pattern: in the beginning a variety of users contribute with short messages, added with screenshots to emphasize their point. It then boils down to a Few pleading their case with mostly well thought, but lengthy, text overladen and repetitive posts, so that most casual forum visitors, although they might be generally interested in the matter, probably won't bother to participate.

And indeed the communication from MS is awkward. In Sep. 21 Jorg Neumann announced SU7 and a further, "spectacular" weather update for 2022/23 - which didn't happen - and then back in Nov. 2022 he announced talks with Meteoblue about data resolution, WXradar Api and "future features" and promised to inform about the outcome in early 2023 - also never happened. Instead the last Q&A delivered some vague statements hinting at opening the weather for third parties, which was sacrosanct from the beginning. While some users think the radio silence hints for a  "surprise"  announced for later this year, I fear it has more to do with overload.

Edited May 26, 20233 yr by Tom_L

4 hours ago, Tom_L said:

While some users think the radio silence hints for a  "surprise"  announced for later this year, I fear it has more to do with overload

Right, not sure where folks are coming up with that - very unlikely Asobo would keep a "spectacular" weather update under wraps, others tend to think it is seasons, but again I highly doubt that too.

It's probably a free scenery or airplane - which don't get me wrong those are always very much appreciated! But weather overhaul needs to be attended to. What is funny to me (but really not) is how acceptable the live weather was at release, until they screwed it all up. (not the accuracy of the live weather at release, but more the organic, natural and realistic "rendition" of the clouds/weather).

Edited May 26, 20233 yr by KERNEL32
spelling

I have a video I made a little over two years ago of a landing at Atlanta in a typical stormy day. https://youtu.be/zLbfoj4oAjo

It was very exciting with the lightning and thunder happening all over the place.

I have flown maybe 100 flights lately in the same stormy type conditions without EVER seeing any lightning.

Boy, I sure do miss it.

I was flying somewhere the other day, believe it was out in West Texas and actually saw a couple of bolts of lightning. It's the first I've seen in probably over a year.

Credit where credit is due as MSFS can look stunning at times, but yeah that picture is blatantly photoshopped and I didn't need to read the thread/link to see that.

Saw lightning in the sim on two days ago north of Key West, which comported with the actual weather at the time. So it's there, but perhaps not as fully represented as it might be. There is a web site that displays global lightning info in near real time

https://map.blitzortung.org/#1/30.4/8

so the source of RW information appears to be available, even for the oceans.

 

I wonder if, in real life, pilots find that the conditions when they landed didn't quite match the ATIS or ASOS?

2 hours ago, rjquick said:

I wonder if, in real life, pilots find that the conditions when they landed didn't quite match the ATIS or ASOS?

Frequently. METARs and ATIS weather is just a snapshot from a ground based station at the time the bulletin was published and obviously the weather changes until a new one is issued.

I saw a video of SFO landings the other day with lots of go arounds. The wind report the tower gave was something like 5 kts, slight head and crosswind. Every go around however reported 15 to 20 kts tailwind, which wasn't in compliance with the METAR at all.

Edited May 27, 20233 yr by Nixoq

2 hours ago, Nixoq said:

Frequently. METARs and ATIS weather is just a snapshot from a ground based station at the time the bulletin was published and obviously the weather changes until a new one is issued.

I saw a video of SFO landings the other day with lots of go arounds. The wind report the tower gave was something like 5 kts, slight head and crosswind. Every go around however reported 15 to 20 kts tailwind, which wasn't in compliance with the METAR at all.

Indeed. My post was quite rhetorical as it seems that what people are asking for doesn't even happen IRL all the time. That being conditions on the ground precisely matching ATIS reports. Even watching videos of pilots online you will often hear them getting updated weather information from the tower when they are near the airport and it may differ from their last automated report.

It also seems like people may be viewing FS weather in the opposite way that weather actually happens. Actual weather doesn't start by nailing down the weather precisely at reporting stations and filling in the blanks in between. Weather is constantly evolving and the conditions at any location on the ground just is what it is at the moment. Meaning that if FS is actually trying to simulate moving and changing weather systems that are based on the data from the local stations, the weather could be changing rapidly (or not). I recall that FSX took the ATIS quite literally and the conditions at the airport were precisely what the ATIS said. You can certainly argue if that was accurate or not.

They must be monitoring Avsim:  I had not seen ANY t-storm lightening for a year or what have you, and now two flights in a row.

Yep I saw lightning today near Omaha NE and there was a T storm there indicated by radar.  First time I've seen it in over a year in msfs.

It's storm season lol. There was a thread like this not too long ago and I was able to track and find lightning in the sim back then.