Minnesota here. We have had an absolutely bizarre winter so far. It was in the 50s (F) on Christmas Eve. Even now, there's only a light dusting of snow that I haven't even bothered to shovel off my driveway. Even El Nino doesn't explain this. We'd normally be much closer to 0.

I was actually pleasantly surprised to see no snow cover in the KMSP area in sim when I was flying there over the holidays. It showed the sim is actually taking into account real world conditions rather than assuming "it's winter above X-latitude, therefore there's snow on the ground."

 

Snow is present in Sweden and Denmark at least

 

Michael Moe

I appreciate this topic coming back to life, but I think my original point has been overlooked.  From what I understand, MSFS uses Meteoblue snow depth charts to determine snow cover.

meteoblue

When I did my flight last month, Meteoblue had snow covererage, but MSFS did not.

 

Yellowstone today

Unfortunately for most regions inside 'valleys' it's still as bad as day 1, in some parts of Switzerland / Austria / North Italy and probably many more, we're stuck with constant and huge snow/ice non stop from november to april even if in real life it's 15+ degrees Celsius and it hasn't snowed for months, nonsense. And yes, as far is I know, it's due to the sim using a very low level of metoblue accuracy (probably the less expensive 😉) so when there's a bit of snow on top of a high mountain all the area near that mountain is covered with snow 🙄.

Hoped for a fix in 2022, hoped for a fix in 2023, never came, now not hoping anymore, maybe something better for MS2024 but probably won't. For me, even a single checkbox 'depict snow yes/no' would be good enough, i would get rid of snow forever in the sim, it really kills all the immersion for me in some places (even when there is a bit of snow in the real world, it's often way overdone in the sim with lakes/rivers completely frozen and roads barely visible, that probably happens in Alaska or very northern part of europe, but big lakes or important rivers do not freeze everywhere). I almost always forced to run the sim without live weather all winter long (which is a shame because live weather gives great visual at times with the clouds and general atmosphere) ...

Below, the usual 'real vs sim pic' over switzerland with the current weather, it's always like that, even the big river is completely frozen and white (you can't even see it on the screenshot if you don't know where it is), never happens in real life, oh well yeah maybe during the last glacial period but that ended like 15000 (?) years ago. Sure if you don't know the region and fly there you would probably say 'oh nice winter landscape', but when you know that in real life it's covered with snow maybe 2 weeks a year and in the sim it lasts around 5-6 months non stop it's a bit annoying.

Sure results will vary depending on the regions, and most US flyers probably have good result, but in some part of the world it's really very very bad.

Oh well, not a very useful post, just to say something because when i see people saying snow is missing i could not resist posting a little reply because snow depiction is probably one of the thing that bothers me the most in the otherwise great sim 😁🙃🤑

🍻

 

Edited January 6, 20242 yr by Bad_T

Flying now into Teluride. The snow covered ground looks amazing. Quite pleased with this most recent representation of our winter wx.

-B

On 1/6/2024 at 4:34 AM, Bad_T said:

Hoped for a fix in 2022, hoped for a fix in 2023, never came, now not hoping anymore, maybe something better for MS2024 but probably won't. For me, even a single checkbox 'depict snow yes/no' would be good enough, 

 

For those cases ( like Milford sounds NZ), my workaround is to dust off rex weather.

On 1/8/2024 at 1:45 PM, btacon said:

Flying now into Teluride. The snow covered ground looks amazing. Quite pleased with this most recent representation of our winter wx.

-B

That's great! Because, as I sit and type this I am sitting in Breckenridge and there is plenty of snow here, with most of the skiable terrain open. It snowed all day today while I was out there skiing. Granted, Telluride is a totally different zone of the Rockies, but hopefully in the sim Breck is represented well. It's funny, because as it was snowing all day here in Breck, whenever I would look at the weather app on my phone it would say it there was no snow in sight. With that kind of info vs. reality, it's no wonder that sometimes MSFS weather is not precise for a given area.

2 hours ago, sniper31 said:

It snowed all day today while I was out there skiing.

Oh, no! That sounds terrible. Thoughts and prayers for you taking one for the rest of us! 😜 (Hope you has a great day)

The issue with weather in the sim is granularity, certainly when it comes to snow coverage. There's often a disconnect between what's reported and what MSFS depicts (e.g. dense snow cover in Swiss and Norwegian valleys in Autumn when the temps are still a fair bit above freezing).

The source data would seem to be drawn appear from here: https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/maps/#coords=6.46/39.353/-104.95&map=snowDepth~hourly~auto~sfc~none (just select precipitation and snow cover from the menu). If the map below doesn't match your experience from today, that might also explain why snow cover isn't always true in the sim.

Ironically whilst watching Easysimjet Pilot’s stream with a route to Inverness the Meteoblue webcams showed snow in Inverness. When he arrived there was not a snowflake to be seen. 

Is there any fix for the age-old snow issue (whilst using live weather)?

I've been patiently waiting all winter for some Alpine flying, spent money on airports in the region and this morning discover snow at Megève while the rest of the region (same altitude) is totally devoid of snow. Web cams say no snow. MeteoBlue says no snow (at said altitude and airport).

MS says snow.

There MUST be a workaround for this (as it's clear Asobo/MS is not too concerned with fixing it) using live weather. 🤷‍♂️

1 hour ago, lupedelupe said:

 

There MUST be a workaround for this (as it's clear Asobo/MS is not too concerned with fixing it) using live weather. 🤷‍♂️

With live weather there is none.

10 minutes ago, Farlis said:

With live weather there is none.

I had snow on the ground at Megève (the airfield and town) using Live Weather just a few hours ago. Surrounding hills to the west were completely clear.

Must emphasise this is snow on the ground; clear skies. 

Edited May 11, 20242 yr by lupedelupe

8 hours ago, lupedelupe said:

Is there any fix for the age-old snow issue (whilst using live weather)?

I've been patiently waiting all winter for some Alpine flying, spent money on airports in the region and this morning discover snow at Megève while the rest of the region (same altitude) is totally devoid of snow. Web cams say no snow. MeteoBlue says no snow (at said altitude and airport).

MS says snow.

There MUST be a workaround for this (as it's clear Asobo/MS is not too concerned with fixing it) using live weather. 🤷‍♂️

Active Sky (and I assume Rex) do fix this, FWIW, since they're using presets to to what they do. Juneau has always been perma-winter in the sim too, with frozen water as well (salt water, with ripping tidal currents... Yeah no, way to go Asobo lol), but with active sky the ground can finally be green.