No more live weather thunderstorms?

[UAL4life 239]

Anyone else notice there aren’t any thunderstorms in live weather anymore? I get rain and that’s it. 😞 miss the days of escaping the Bahamas just as a large thunderstorm passes over the field. 

[John Fields 279]

Hi,

I haven't seen any thunderstorm for ages!

Regards.

[Alvega 2,124]

I see them sometimes, but they are very rare now. Hope they fix that.

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

They are not realistic anyway, very tame.  A true tropical storm would have the wings off a Cessna within minutes.

 

case in point .... Cherokee Six incident in Texas in 2011 ... the aircraft was still at 6800 ft when the wing spar snapped from turbulence and over speed

 

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by Glenn Fitzpatrick

[Shack95 2,658]

Be careful what you wish for. Remember the days when there were flashes of lightning as soon as there was a cloud to be seen? But you‘re right, convincing thunderstorms would be nice.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,957]

I remember a stat from many years ago that at any one time there are 2,200 thunderstorms in the world.

Is there any way to search for them in MSFS. There is in Active Sky of course but that’s for another sim.

[Alvega 2,124]

4 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I remember a stat from many years ago that at any one time there are 2,200 thunderstorms in the world.

Is there any way to search for them in MSFS. There is in Active Sky of course but that’s for another sim.

The way I do it is finding them in this site by clicking in "Thunderstorm": https://www.badbadweather.com/

I then load the sim in one of those airports to check it out.

[Tom_L 533]

The "Where are thunder and lightning" thread in the official forums has the "bug logged" tag, meaning it is acknowledged and a fix should be in preparation, yet nothing has happened so far - and the thread started in late 2021.

There's so much to be desired regarding the simulation of Atmosphere, Weather and Environment. One major problem may be the definition off "accuracy". The Live Weather simulation introduced with SU7, which was supposed to increase "accuracy", did so mainly in terms of where clouds are placed into the sim (laterally), but that's about it. Thunderstorms, cloud types including CB, thickness and number of cloud layers, cloud density, shallow fog or fog in general and much more that was present in the release version hasn't been seen since, others were never implemented, e.g. turbulence inside clouds and reduced visbility without precipitation. As the release version has shown that the potential ist generally there and most data are obviously available on the Meteoblue website, it seems to be a problem with proper implementation or unwillingness of further investments for better resolution data or dedicated personnel.

But there's also the truth that most users seem to be satisfied with the gaming environment [sic!], as there are quite a few related Bug Report/Wishlist threads in the official forums that struggle to gain enough traction (votes!), contrary to e.g. topics demanding bridges to be modified so that they can be underflown. According to the recent Q&A MS has dedicated 10 employees for that task. Sarcastically, one might say that users and MS seem to agree on the key aspects of a flight simulator.

But not only with regards to their pre-launch announcements ("for serious simmers") and further announcements related to Live Weather*, but also to match the increasing complexity of aircraft and scenery some more dedication to Atmosphere, Weather and Environment is certainly desirable.

 

* Head of MSFS, Jorg Neumann (Sep 29th. 2021): "Weather for us is a Big Deal. It is something we are heavily, heavily investing in. I think with Meteoblue we have a great partner. Late this year you will get this first Update (remark: SU7), we’re planning on another which will be really awesome when it happens. It will probably be in 2022, it could be as late as 2023. Weather is one of those things. It’s where planes live, it’s got to be awesome. We will get it as good as you can get it. That is really the goal."

 

 

Edited May 24, 2023 by Tom_L

[Jeeeno 314]

Gone since 2021 at least in live weather. 

[ErichB 3,643]

I didn't think they were ever plausibly/realistically depicted anyway.  I'd rather not have them in that case.  Perhaps if third parties are given access for weather, HiFi might be able to provide something better

Edited May 24, 2023 by ErichB

[willy647 193]

39 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I remember a stat from many years ago that at any one time there are 2,200 thunderstorms in the world.

Is there any way to search for them in MSFS. There is in Active Sky of course but that’s for another sim.

This site shows lightnings around the world

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

 

 

[Dominique_K 10,149]

2 hours ago, Shack95 said:

Be careful what you wish for. Remember the days when there were flashes of lightning as soon as there was a cloud to be seen? But you‘re right, convincing thunderstorms would be nice.

Listen to the voice of wisdom ! I am with you here. The return of lightnings and thunderclaps in a blue sky of early MSFS is not something that I long for either 😄.  What a pain then ! And flying across thunderstorms should be avoided anyway. 

On a parallel topic, I quite like how the turbulences have been improved over the last few months.  They have to implement them better within the clouds now.

[abrams_tank 7,422]

3 hours ago, UAL4life said:

Anyone else notice there aren’t any thunderstorms in live weather anymore? I get rain and that’s it. 😞 miss the days of escaping the Bahamas just as a large thunderstorm passes over the field. 

The reason why Asobo "dumbed down" the lightning is because back in 2020/2021, a lot of users were complaining that lightning/thunder was everywhere. On a partly cloudy day, with some clouds around (but not a fully overcast day), there was lightning/thunder. Hence, there was lightning/thunder everywhere. It annoyed so many users that Asobo "dumbed down" the lightning/thunder.

That version of lightning/thunder probably won't come back, because if it did, a lot of users would complain once again.

The proper solution is for Asobo to figure out the right conditions for lightning/thunder to form, and the exact area that it would form at. The logic/algorithm for it might be much harder for them to implement, so maybe that's why there hasn't been any movement on this since then.

Edited May 24, 2023 by abrams_tank

[Jeeeno 314]

16 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

The reason why Asobo "dumbed down" the lightning is because back in 2020/2021, a lot of users were complaining that lightning/thunder was everywhere. On a partly cloudy day, with some clouds around (but not a fully overcast day), there was lightning/thunder. Hence, there was lightning/thunder everywhere. It annoyed so many users that Asobo "dumbed down" the lightning/thunder.

That version of lightning/thunder probably won't come back, because if it did, a lot of users would complain once again.

The proper solution is for Asobo to figure out the right conditions for lightning/thunder to form, and the exact area that it would form at. The logic/algorithm for it might be much harder for them to implement, so maybe that's why there hasn't been any movement on this since then.

People complained because there were thunders where they weren't supposed to be, not simply because "there were too many thunders".

Asobo wasn't able to fix it, so they completely scrapped them, like many other things. 

[jcomm 5,939]

21 minutes ago, abrams_tank said:

The reason why Asobo "dumbed down" the lightning is because back in 2020/2021, a lot of users were complaining that lightning/thunder was everywhere. On a partly cloudy day, with some clouds around (but not a fully overcast day), there was lightning/thunder. Hence, there was lightning/thunder everywhere. It annoyed so many users that Asobo "dumbed down" the lightning/thunder.

That version of lightning/thunder probably won't come back, because if it did, a lot of users would complain once again.

The proper solution is for Asobo to figure out the right conditions for lightning/thunder to form, and the exact area that it would form at. The logic/algorithm for it might be much harder for them to implement, so maybe that's why there hasn't been any movement on this since then.

Yes, that's the why.

Yet I do think that with access to the meteoblue forecasts they could try to simulate thunder in the areas where it is forecast.

ActiveSky has an option to detach thunder from Cbs because before they did so, long ago in times of FSX and then P3D, Cbs would always be associated with thunder and lightning.

These subtleties that ASOBO does probably not have time to deal with given their certainly long enough TODO list should better be handled by external weather injcetors, and that's why I fully support their opening of the core weather system to 3pds so that HiFi, or others, could do their job. We would all benefit !!!

Edited May 24, 2023 by jcomm