No more live weather thunderstorms?

[Tuskin38 6,569]

I've been storm chasing a couple days and didn't find any lightning. I was going off METAR reports.

[SAS443 1,728]

On 5/27/2023 at 4:19 PM, rjquick said:

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

Yes. Happens mostly to the wind conditions - since winds are very dynamic of nature obviously and METAR/ATIS reports average winds (over 10 mins??). 

where I fly, winds are basically always variable with a mean speed of 7-10kts. Most useful information is the wind sock at the threshold...

Confession: I mostly write down the ATIS just so ATC doesn't yell at me for not knowing which information is current. 🤡

 

 

 

[Krakin 5,796]

One thing I haven't seen in lightning flashing in distant thunderstorms. It's like if the lightning isn't happening directly above or below you, it is no longer visible. Of course I can't confirm that this is how it actually works but it is what I have observed. If that's the case, it could explain why lightning seems to be so scarce and they should definitely fix it.

[MarcG 3,017]

35 minutes ago, Krakin said:

One thing I haven't seen in lightning flashing in distant thunderstorms. It's like if the lightning isn't happening directly above or below you, it is no longer visible. Of course I can't confirm that this is how it actually works but it is what I have observed. If that's the case, it could explain why lightning seems to be so scarce and they should definitely fix it.

A good way to test would be to set a preset of Thunderstorms, then take the drone up as high as possible, look down and see how far (wide) you can see lightning.

Or actually find some one real life & Sim and move the drone further and further away.

[jarmstro 2,405]

I had thunder and lightning in a flight I did a couple of days ago in Java. Maybe those who do not get thunder and lightning is because there isn't any thunder and lightning where they are flying? Just my guess.

[Fiorentoni 4,257]

The only time I saw lightning since 2021 was when I accidentally had the storm preset enabled instead of live weather. I've flown through at least 30 thunderstorms in the last year without seeing a single lightning with live weather.

[Jacoba 55]

Anyone able to check the conditions of the tropical depression that just formed off the west coast of Florida and report back?

im away from my PC.

[Tuskin38 6,569]

3 hours ago, Jacoba said:

Anyone able to check the conditions of the tropical depression that just formed off the west coast of Florida and report back?

im away from my PC.

just seeing lots of rain in the sim

Edit: oh you said west not east, I was flying over Miami 😂

Edited June 2, 2023 by Tuskin38

[MarcG 3,017]

I am right now seeing real world storms across Europe in both Windy.com & Meteoblue websites with blitzortung.org as a third backup and yet in MSFS using Live Weather there is not a single strike of lightning, the clouds are there but not activity whatsoever in 3 different locations...#sigh As the day draws on some of these storms may develop (get bigger) so I'll take another look later.

Going back to earlier, I used the Storm Preset (which obviously has lightning) and flew up to a very high altitude, when I looked back down lightning was only visible in the area directly below the drone, there was no distant lightning at all. Going on this and the above lack of live lightning I have come to some conclusions;

• Meteoblue (as I know from personal experience) isn't very good at plotting Live Storms with lightning, blitzortung.org & windy.com are far better and much more accurate so this could be a reason why MSFS is severely lacking (I've presumed this for awhile).
• Jorgs now famous "what lightning in clear skies bug?" Q&A response meant they coded a change to lower that which probably resulted in far less lightning activity when there are actual storms.
• Storms do exist in Live Weather, some people (including myself) have seen them but they are extremely random so something is clearly not working correctly and yet here we are months & months later with no fix.
• Ultimately IMO the SU7 METAR update that the Vatsim crowd cried for has undoubtedly a lot to blame for the issues, casual users who saw pretty decent Live Weather (across the board) pre update have lost out, there's no denying for me that Asobo screwed this "weather update" for the majority and bowed to the harvesting of votes, the evidence in threads here & official forum are there for all to see and they all have a common theme - they're all pointing to post-SU7. The issue is they have done very little since then to change & fix Live Weather and clouds depiction, they've made a mess and they need to get on top of it. (lest we forget SU7 came out in late 2021...)

[james42 258]

Same here, haven't seen a decent thunderstorm for months with live weather even if one is forecast. Strangely, I did see some lightning the other day coming out of some wispy high altitude clouds which I didn't look right at all.

Edited June 4, 2023 by james42

[KERNEL32 500]

1 hour ago, MarcG said:

there was no distant lightning at all

Which is important to have, not only for the cool effects of far away lightning but distant lightning is mother nature warning us "stay away"! And when we see it from afar, we know to stay away in the sim too! But it only makes sense to fix/add distant lightning if flying in or near a thunderstorm has actual consequences. For now, we could fly right into one of the storms (if there is one) and it's kind of "bleh", nothing really happens.

We need severe enough up and down drafts, turbulence within the towering cumulonimbus clouds, hail, wind shear, etc. Give me a reason and a challenge to work around the storms (and even the building storms that are not quite a storm yet, those are dangerous too!)

[B777ER 2,489]

Flying across the US lately with live weather and in and around what are numerous thunderstorms and not one single cloud to ground or cloud to cloud lightning seen. Honestly, P3D with Activesky was much better in this regard. Asobo needs to get it sorted out as it’s highly unrealistic.

[F737MAX 5,659]

Speaking of missing Live Weather thunderstorms, as I said on another thread, I flew into Bordeaux-Mérignac last night as there was TS activity reported:        

Quote

LFBD 032200Z AUTO 33004KT 270V020 9999 -RA ///CB 19/16 Q1013 TEMPO VRB15G30KT 2000 TSRA BECMG NSC     

LFBD 032230Z AUTO 30008KT 9999 -RA VCTS ///CB 19/16 Q1013 TEMPO 3000 BR BECMG NSC

Apart from a few scattered cumulonimbus  clouds at 6000' to the East while on approach, there wasn't anything else. When I arrived at LFBD, there was no light rain, visibility was far greater than either 2,000m or 3,000m and there was absolutely no thunder, lightning, or CB overhead, nor nearby. Could easily see the coastline, which is some 25 miles (40km / 40,000m) from the airfield.

Really disappointing.

[moxiejeff 17]

On 5/24/2023 at 12:50 AM, 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. 

Hey all! I've created a MSFS thread on this about a year ago... of course, zero response from the devs. 

 

However, today -- low and behold - LIGHTNING and thunder are back in live weather. Was just at Atlanta and was able to record it (apologies, you also will hear me scream at my puppy for peeing on the carpet while this was happening! oops!)

 

Latest thoughts (June 2023) - I recall Seb or Jorg mentioning that lightning and thunder never went away from the sim, it's just that we weren't in summer months... yet, I don't guess they realize that at least in the south US/southeast US, we get lightning in real life ALL YEAR round.

 

Check it out!

 

[KERNEL32 500]

27 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

Speaking of missing Live Weather thunderstorms, as I said on another thread, I flew into Bordeaux-Mérignac last night as there was TS activity reported:        

Apart from a few scattered cumulonimbus  clouds at 6000' to the East while on approach, there wasn't anything else. When I arrived at LFBD, there was no light rain, visibility was far greater than either 2,000m or 3,000m and there was absolutely no thunder, lightning, or CB overhead, nor nearby. Could easily see the coastline, which is some 25 miles (40km / 40,000m) from the airfield.

Really disappointing.

Yes, I hope it is just an issue / bug that they will fix - but I cannot shake the feeling that after a few SU updates post release (which live weather effect were great before then) they "watered down" the live weather to exclude any really bad weather. My belief is that it "scared off" too many casual gamers. I know we used to have bad weather and decent effects; I flew through many of thunderstorms until around SU5 or so.. then - this.