22 minutes ago, Tuskin38 said:

Ok I should specify that METAR thunderstorms appear to be broken. I have seem them outside of METAR areas.

I am doing a flight right now (2024) from KDFW to KCLT. There is a large area of thunderstorms extending from Houston to Oklahoma City, and east of Dallas. They were beautifully depicted in the sim and on the weather radar of the IniBuilds A321N. No discernible lightning however. There was one level 5 cell right on my flight path which I flew around in HDG mode. I was between layers for a few moments and caught sight of it, and it absolutely looked like proper cumulonimbus - something that I almost never see in 2020

20 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

I am doing a flight right now (2024) from KDFW to KCLT. There is a large area of thunderstorms extending from Houston to Oklahoma City, and east of Dallas. They were beautifully depicted in the sim and on the weather radar of the IniBuilds A321N. No discernible lightning however. There was one level 5 cell right on my flight path which I flew around in HDG mode. I was between layers for a few moments and caught sight of it, and it absolutely looked like proper cumulonimbus - something that I almost never see in 2020

Yes I flew in some other storms around DFW earlier this week and saw more representative storm clouds than 2020 but also no lightning.  I live here and there was plenty of lighting with both storm systems this week.  They need to fix that and 2024 weather will definitely be better.  But it’s been that way in 2020 too after before having lightning everywhere including clear skies.  They haven’t been able to get it right and I don’t understand cause there is tons of lightning data available in real time for them to use (at least in the US)

2 hours ago, thetford569 said:

Yes I flew in some other storms around DFW earlier this week and saw more representative storm clouds than 2020 but also no lightning.  I live here and there was plenty of lighting with both storm systems this week.  They need to fix that and 2024 weather will definitely be better.  But it’s been that way in 2020 too after before having lightning everywhere including clear skies.  They haven’t been able to get it right and I don’t understand cause there is tons of lightning data available in real time for them to use (at least in the US)

Asobo weather provider is junk when it comes to lightning data. Until they change providers or source it from somewhere else, it will never get better. Jorg and Asobo, IMO, don't care about this aspect at all as they have had over 4 years and still no fix even with a new sim. 

14 minutes ago, B777ER said:

Asobo weather provider is junk when it comes to lightning data. Until they change providers or source it from somewhere else, it will never get better. Jorg and Asobo, IMO, don't care about this aspect at all as they have had over 4 years and still no fix even with a new sim. 

Not sure what you are blabbering.

The weather has greatly improved in recent days. Spot on here in Europe.  There are many thick cloud layers, dense overcast, fog, rain, snow. Maybe no lightning at the moment but all in all a huge step forward. It seems they are working on it right now, and I am sure they continue with further fine tuning.

12 hours ago, B777ER said:

Asobo weather provider is junk when it comes to lightning data. Until they change providers or source it from somewhere else, it will never get better. Jorg and Asobo, IMO, don't care about this aspect at all as they have had over 4 years and still no fix even with a new sim. 

Their weather provider (MeteoBlue) is fine. Live Weather is based on a global forecast model, and such models do not contain real-time lightning data. No forecast model does, no matter what the source or data provider.

R/T lightning data for commercial applications is only available from one source: a company called Vaisala, and their data is extremely expensive. Even for an individual private subscriber, the fees would amount to several hundred dollars per month. For a commercial application used by thousands of people like MSFS I am sure the cost would be enormous, and far more than Microsoft could justify for use in the sim.

There is an alternative - Blitzortung.org which is a crowd-sourced lightning detection network consisting of hundreds of volunteer users who host lightning detectors at their homes and upload their data to a server network which correlates strike data in real time to generate location maps. It works very well, but it is basically an “open source” product, and I have my doubts that Microsoft could or would use the data in a commercial application like MSFS for legal reasons.

The NOAA GOES East and West weather satellites do now have onboard lightning flash detectors. The system is known as “GLM” and it is a visual detection system, unlike Vaisala or Blitzortung which detect lightning by triangulating the radio-frequency emissions generated by lightning. That would probably be the best solution for MSFS, as the data is free to use. It is not “up to the second” real-time, but it could certainly show locations where lightning is currently occurring.

The two GOES satellite “footprints” cover most of the western hemisphere, but I don’t know if similar near real-time satellite-based lighting strike data is available for other parts of the world.

LiveWeather has already been using real-time satellite imagery for quite some time to enhance the cloud depiction in MSFS.

Back when LiveWeather had far too much “lightning everywhere”, I think they were using a weather model parameter known as CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy), which can indicate where thunderstorms might form, but CAPE by itself does not mean that thunderstorms do exist at a given location. In hot, humid weather you can have high CAPE values even with no current clouds at all.

 

Is it possible to have Live Waether but change the sim time? It should be possible but I don’t think it actually works. If you set Live Weather and then change the time in Custom, while checking Live the weather changes?

16 minutes ago, MarkW said:

Is it possible to have Live Waether but change the sim time? It should be possible but I don’t think it actually works. If you set Live Weather and then change the time in Custom, while checking Live the weather changes?

yes, you have a 24h range of historical weather available.

1 hour ago, roland_lfor said:

yes, you have a 24h range of historical weather available.

Right but I don’t want this on its own. I want to fly with current weather at a different time. I would like to fly in daylight when my real time is night a home. This option is now lost. 

2 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

Their weather provider (MeteoBlue) is fine. Live Weather is based on a global forecast model, and such models do not contain real-time lightning data. No forecast model does, no matter what the source or data provider.

R/T lightning data for commercial applications is only available from one source: a company called Vaisala, and their data is extremely expensive. Even for an individual private subscriber, the fees would amount to several hundred dollars per month. For a commercial application used by thousands of people like MSFS I am sure the cost would be enormous, and far more than Microsoft could justify for use in the sim.

There is an alternative - Blitzortung.org which is a crowd-sourced lightning detection network consisting of hundreds of volunteer users who host lightning detectors at their homes and upload their data to a server network which correlates strike data in real time to generate location maps. It works very well, but it is basically an “open source” product, and I have my doubts that Microsoft could or would use the data in a commercial application like MSFS for legal reasons.

The NOAA GOES East and West weather satellites do now have onboard lightning flash detectors. The system is known as “GLM” and it is a visual detection system, unlike Vaisala or Blitzortung which detect lightning by triangulating the radio-frequency emissions generated by lightning. That would probably be the best solution for MSFS, as the data is free to use. It is not “up to the second” real-time, but it could certainly show locations where lightning is currently occurring.

The two GOES satellite “footprints” cover most of the western hemisphere, but I don’t know if similar near real-time satellite-based lighting strike data is available for other parts of the world.

LiveWeather has already been using real-time satellite imagery for quite some time to enhance the cloud depiction in MSFS.

Back when LiveWeather had far too much “lightning everywhere”, I think they were using a weather model parameter known as CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy), which can indicate where thunderstorms might form, but CAPE by itself does not mean that thunderstorms do exist at a given location. In hot, humid weather you can have high CAPE values even with no current clouds at all.

 

And... there's Euclid too ..."euclid.org" Realtime and Lightning Maps: https://www.lightningmaps.org/#m=oss;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=;ts=0;

Somehow xEnviro which I am using with XP12, has included substantial inter-cloud and cloud-2-ground data, which makes flying with lightning where it should be active i real world weather or under historic weather, rather convincing.

6 minutes ago, jcomm said:

And... there's Euclid too ..."euclid.org" Realtime and Lightning Maps: https://www.lightningmaps.org/#m=oss;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=;ts=0;

Somehow xEnviro which I am using with XP12, has included substantial inter-cloud and cloud-2-ground data, which makes flying with lightning where it should be active i real world weather or under historic weather, rather convincing.

Euclid is another interface to the Blitzortung network. I don’t think Microsoft would be willing to directly incorporate their lightning data into MSFS. Too many legal complications. However, a third-party could certainly produce an app that would leverage Blitzortung data and inject it into the sim if there was a weather API in MSFS that would allow external weather injection - but there is not.

20 hours ago, urthgental said:

Not sure what you are blabbering.

The weather has greatly improved in recent days. Spot on here in Europe.  There are many thick cloud layers, dense overcast, fog, rain, snow. Maybe no lightning at the moment but all in all a huge step forward. It seems they are working on it right now, and I am sure they continue with further fine tuning.

 

7 hours ago, JRBarrett said:

Their weather provider (MeteoBlue) is fine. Live Weather is based on a global forecast model, and such models do not contain real-time lightning data. No forecast model does, no matter what the source or data provider.

R/T lightning data for commercial applications is only available from one source: a company called Vaisala, and their data is extremely expensive. Even for an individual private subscriber, the fees would amount to several hundred dollars per month. For a commercial application used by thousands of people like MSFS I am sure the cost would be enormous, and far more than Microsoft could justify for use in the sim.

There is an alternative - Blitzortung.org which is a crowd-sourced lightning detection network consisting of hundreds of volunteer users who host lightning detectors at their homes and upload their data to a server network which correlates strike data in real time to generate location maps. It works very well, but it is basically an “open source” product, and I have my doubts that Microsoft could or would use the data in a commercial application like MSFS for legal reasons.

The NOAA GOES East and West weather satellites do now have onboard lightning flash detectors. The system is known as “GLM” and it is a visual detection system, unlike Vaisala or Blitzortung which detect lightning by triangulating the radio-frequency emissions generated by lightning. That would probably be the best solution for MSFS, as the data is free to use. It is not “up to the second” real-time, but it could certainly show locations where lightning is currently occurring.

The two GOES satellite “footprints” cover most of the western hemisphere, but I don’t know if similar near real-time satellite-based lighting strike data is available for other parts of the world.

LiveWeather has already been using real-time satellite imagery for quite some time to enhance the cloud depiction in MSFS.

Back when LiveWeather had far too much “lightning everywhere”, I think they were using a weather model parameter known as CAPE (Convective Available Potential Energy), which can indicate where thunderstorms might form, but CAPE by itself does not mean that thunderstorms do exist at a given location. In hot, humid weather you can have high CAPE values even with no current clouds at all.

 

 

Hmm, don't recall typing anything about all the other weather-related stuff in the sim that you all reply to my post on, just the lightning (when it comes to lightning data. Until they change providers or source it from somewhere else). Yet you both infer by my post that I have thrown shade on the whole weather ecosystem in MS2024 by way of your replies detailing many aspects of the weather that I never even mentioned. In fact, one of you reassert my comment about the need to change providers. Fascinating how this happens.   

1 hour ago, B777ER said:

 

 

Hmm, don't recall typing anything about all the other weather-related stuff in the sim that you all reply to my post on, just the lightning (when it comes to lightning data. Until they change providers or source it from somewhere else). Yet you both infer by my post that I have thrown shade on the whole weather ecosystem in MS2024 by way of your replies detailing many aspects of the weather that I never even mentioned. In fact, one of you reassert my comment about the need to change providers. Fascinating how this happens.   

“All the other weather related stuff”? I don’t know about other replies to your post,,but everything in my reply was specifically on the topic of lightning in LiveWeather.

In a sense, you “threw shade” in the beginning when you talked about the bad weather data provider being responsible for the lack of lightning data - assuming that the data provider is somehow responsible for there not being real time lightning.

Changing weather data providers is not going to do any good. No provider of global weather models has real-time lightning data.

As I explained, there is precisely one company in the world that provides global real-time lightning data for commercial use - Vaisala - and their data is extremely expensive. I am very sure MS/Asobo could not/would not pay the absolutely enormous fees that Vaisala would charge. It is a non-starter. 

The rest of my post was about possible alternatives. The Blitzortung network has r/t lighting strike data, but because it was not designed or intended for commercial use, I would think MS would be reluctant to source it from there.

The best alternative would be to use the r/t flash data from the NOAA GOES weather satellites, but I don’t know how easy it would be to incorporate that into the existing LiveWeather system. 

In 2024, I am seeing definite cumulonimbus clouds where they exist in real time. That may be coming both from the weather model and r/t satellite imagery. Even without real-time lighting strike data, if the sim can generate cumulonimbus (and depict cells on the simulated weather radar) I see no reason why Asobo could not produce lightning where those cells exist. I’m not sure why they don’t.

Edited December 27, 20241 yr by JRBarrett

On 12/27/2024 at 4:18 PM, JRBarrett said:

Euclid is another interface to the Blitzortung network. I don’t think Microsoft would be willing to directly incorporate their lightning data into MSFS. Too many legal complications. However, a third-party could certainly produce an app that would leverage Blitzortung data and inject it into the sim if there was a weather API in MSFS that would allow external weather injection - but there is not.

Btw why do they still not allow this? Afaik this is what makes apps like ASFS basically a collection of improvised workarounds. Previously I thought Asobo didnt want to allow creation of a proper 3rd party weather system for MSFS because it could defeat marketing for MSFS 2024. Whats the reason for being so protective with the weather API?

I am still on 2020 myself and i am happy with it. Especially since addon compatbility doesnt seem to be as guarranteed as announced. Minor issues with visuals in 2020 could be improved by mods/3rd party apps.  The only reason for me to get 2024 would have been more accurate live weather and cloud types, including realistic TS/CB depiction, similar to the way it was done by ActiveSky on FSX/P3D.  I decided to wait for reviews and I am glad to see i was right.

Edited February 8, 20251 yr by Soulflight