QNH Errors - Possible NOAA issues?

[mmcmah 442]

Hi Nico,

I imagine this might be an issue with RT, but PSXTraffic seems to be showing the wrong value for the QNH and all planes are landing short of the runway. I read on Avsim as well as on a few Discords that NOAA had recently changed the way it serves weather data and had therefore broken some sim utilities (P2ATC, Rex Weather apps, Fenix A320, others?). I wonder if the same happened with PSXTraffic/RT?

I loaded into KJFK (Baro pressure reported by in-game METAR of 30.06 / 1018 as reported by Metar-Taf), then KLAX (29.86 / 1011) and PHNL (29.98 / 1015).

In all three cases, PSXTraffic showed a QNH of 1013 and the planes landed short of the runway at KJFK and PHNL. I didn't check how they were landing at KLAX.

In the past when I have seen others mention planes landing short, I recall that you've said it was likely a bad baro altitude reading. I think it might be something that needs to be looked into to see if the data streams are still containing the right baro pressure.

Thanks.

Edited October 18, 2023 by mmcmah

[Harrier77 60]

Same here at EIDW and EGNX, both 1013, whereas they should have been 999 & 1006.

[kiek 1,231]

I had 1013 at LSZH yesterday too...

What is NOAA? Does that apply to Europe also?

Edited October 18, 2023 by kiek

[Harrier77 60]

8 minutes ago, kiek said:

I had 1013 at LSZH yesterday too...

What is NOAA? Does that apply to Europe also?

It's the USA METAR service, which many flight sim products use for their METAR information. I suspect that RealTraffic uses it for its information. If this is the case then an update will be needed as is happening with many MSFS software products at the moment.

NOAA changed something a day to two ago which has impacted many flight sim software packages.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Harrier77

[AeroMaster12 46]

I saw a bulletin from REX Simulations which also calls NOAA for weather in the United States. I've reproduced the bulletin below (posted 10/16 at 3:27pm PDT (GMT-7)
 

Quote

NEWS TOPIC: Temporary No Weather Data from NOAA
DATE ISSUED: Monday, October 16, 2023
TYPE: Company News
IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Unfortunately, NOAA has changed the process, without warning, in which to get weather data from their servers. This has thus broken our weather data service. We have reviewed what needs to be changed and our development team is in the process of making these adjustments. However, this will not be an overnight fix and may end up with several days without weather data. We will keep you posted when this is task is completed.

REX ended up restoring connection to the servers and announced that this was resolved today (10/17 at 3:49pm PDT), but it sounded like they had to make a config change on their end. Perhaps that change might be needed in RT depends on NOAA data for weather worldwide. While NOAA is a US-government entity, they do provide weather summaries to global airports (see an example page for LSZH or EHAM)

• https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/weather/current/LSZH.html
• https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/weather/current/EHAM.html

 

In the United States, I'm seeing this printed in the Weather and Traffic section in the RealTraffic app - (spawned at KSEA). Something is broken 😞 

Nearest WX 0.0 NM away at UNKNOWN ICAO: UNKN / IATA:  . Current METAR: UNKN 0000000
Air traffic in area / total :52 / 7454.

 

Edited October 18, 2023 by AeroMaster12
Added RT issue in USA

[Harrier77 60]

Is there a RT forum to report this issue?

[kiek 1,231]

20 minutes ago, Harrier77 said:

Is there a RT forum to report this issue?

No, an email address at the RT website. But I'll contact Balthasar.

EDIT: in the RT window you can see it does find a METAR at all ...

Edited October 18, 2023 by kiek

[SierraDelta 1,355]

Just got an e-mail from Balthasar, he's on the case.

[kiek 1,231]

18 minutes ago, SierraDelta said:

Just got an e-mail from Balthasar, he's on the case.

He has done a partial fix. I have a METAR in Basle/Mulhouse again ..!

[Harrier77 60]

2 hours ago, kiek said:

He has done a partial fix. I have a METAR in Basle/Mulhouse again ..!

Me too at TFS and EMA.

[AeroMaster12 46]

Same, got METAR data again in the USA as well. Thanks for escalating the issue, and pass along our thanks to Balthasar for the speedy fix!