So, nothing freezes, as far as non saltwater lakes, etc.?

Which sim?

Not too sure if water freezes, I will say that up in Alaska  at altitude it looks like the large main rivers have a different tone than the smaller ones, looks like ice on the smaller rivers.

Flew up to Prudhoe Bay, didn't see any ice up there. Closer to real is what I'm striving for. 

 

I will say that it sure looks a lot more realistic up north than in 2020. In 2020 you need Ice Breakers in British Columbia.

3 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

Which sim?

2024

3 hours ago, 0stones0 said:

2024

Please tag your post with 2024!

13 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Please tag your post with 2024!

Schooled myself on tagging but, doesn't appear to be a way for me to do it, in this thread. I will keep it in mind for future posts.

I'm convinced the asobo guys have spent VERY limited time in anything winter related.  

16 minutes ago, micstatic said:

I'm convinced the asobo guys have spent VERY limited time in anything winter related.  

Thank you for your response. I'm basically new to the flight sim scene. Quite a bit I don't know and/or realize about this world. Glad to learn.

4 hours ago, micstatic said:

I'm convinced the asobo guys have spent VERY limited time in anything winter related.  

Makes sense when they pushed seasons in the marketing theme (and bragged they wouldn't do seasons "unless they could do it right")...

in the interest of providing facts, I just did a short flight around the area of seward alaska and I played with a combination of Default Live weather, manual weather presets and Active Sky's historical mode.

as of today in that area using live weather, some smaller creeks were "frozen" and larger lakes and rivers were not.

using AS to set the historical weather to a date in January 2024 all lakes and rivers were frozen.

Turning live and AS off, If I set Snow Depth in the weather configurator to more than 23 or so,  the large lake I was using to test "froze" completely.  smaller numbers resulted in the outer edges of the lake being frozen with the center still liquid.

The sim allowed me to land my tundra tire Fox2 (2020 plane I just copied over to the 2024 folder) on the "frozen" lake, however the plane would then bob as if it was a float plane landing on water.

 

So I guess, as long as the weather data being used depicts a large enough snow depth (temp didnt seem to be a factor) it will show the surface of lakes as white

5 hours ago, KERNEL32 said:

Makes sense when they pushed seasons in the marketing theme (and bragged they wouldn't do seasons "unless they could do it right")...

which sim, in your opinion does seasons better?

7 hours ago, ShawnG said:

in the interest of providing facts, I just did a short flight around the area of seward alaska and I played with a combination of Default Live weather, manual weather presets and Active Sky's historical mode.

as of today in that area using live weather, some smaller creeks were "frozen" and larger lakes and rivers were not.

using AS to set the historical weather to a date in January 2024 all lakes and rivers were frozen.

Turning live and AS off, If I set Snow Depth in the weather configurator to more than 23 or so,  the large lake I was using to test "froze" completely.  smaller numbers resulted in the outer edges of the lake being frozen with the center still liquid.

The sim allowed me to land my tundra tire Fox2 (2020 plane I just copied over to the 2024 folder) on the "frozen" lake, however the plane would then bob as if it was a float plane landing on water.

 

So I guess, as long as the weather data being used depicts a large enough snow depth (temp didnt seem to be a factor) it will show the surface of lakes as white

Basically, what you stated was my experience for the little time I spent looking. Looked "frozen" but, acted liquid. Other larger bodies of water didn't even have a "look" of frozen.

Edited December 26, 20241 yr by 0stones0

I just experimented with this too. Started a flight in northern Canada at the Great Bear Lake airport. Setting the environment to -50°F, and the maximum snow depth of 29". The lake certainly looked like snow covered ice, but put a plane on it, and it behaved like liquid water. I tried the Cub Crafter XCub with skis. Rolled as slowly as possible off the lake shore into the lake, the skis immediately sank into the "snow" and a few seconds later the sim generated a crash. Next I tried the XCub with floats, at same location, same environment, The plane rolled down into the lake and floated on the "snow" exactly like it does on water. Made a couple of takeoffs and landings on the "frozen lake", and the Cub's floats and water rudder behaved exactly as they would on a sunny summer day with the lake at 75°F without so much as a single snowflake or ice cube in sight anywhere. I then experimented with the Cub on tundra tires on 29" deep "snow" on the airport runway. In real life, the landing gear would have sunk completely out of sight, but in the sim, the plane was perfectly happy to take off and land on the "snow" as if it was a dry grass landing strip. Oh, there was a big plume of show being blown back by the prop wash, but no other effect on the plane's actual handling or performance.  The obvious conclusion is that "snow" in FS2024 is just a surface visual effect with no actual depth. Water doesn't freeze into ice no matter how cold you set the environment, except that your pitot tubes and carburetor will clog up in icing conditions if you don't have pitot and carb heat on, the windshield will frost over, and you might completely lose control of the aircraft if the wings and control surfaces ice up too much. Don't fly through thick clouds in cold weather: that will generate ice on your place, but water sitting on the ground doesn't freeze no matter how clod you set the weather to.