Anyone else been flying out of EHAM this week? Just saw the news about a major winter storm that has caused a mess, but in-sim it’s green and dry as can be it seems…
 

Was hoping live weather would depict the situation better. Would Active Sky be a solution to this?

The easiest way is to check METAR and then TAF. You'll get current weather right now and forecast

METAR: EHAM 052325Z 35007KT 320V020 9999 FEW007 00/M01 Q1012 NOSIG

TAF: EHAM 052319Z 0600/0706 30005KT 9999 SCT025 PROB40 TEMPO 0605/0611 4000 SHSNRA FEW008 FEW018CB BECMG 0606/0609 24008KT BECMG 0615/0618 21013KT PROB30 TEMPO 0617/0620 5000 -RASN BKN018 BECMG 0703/0706 18015G25KT 4000 SNRA BKN014

1 hour ago, UAL4life said:

Anyone else been flying out of EHAM this week? Just saw the news about a major winter storm that has caused a mess, but in-sim it’s green and dry as can be it seems…
 

Was hoping live weather would depict the situation better. Would Active Sky be a solution to this?

yesterday it was snowing when I flew out of EHAM. I didn't check real world weather, but it seemed correct and appropriate. It was miserable! Windy, snow/freezing rain. 

All of western Europe is covered with snow....alas not in FS2024

I think the sim has an issue if it doesn't know about snow on the ground and its not currently snowing. I tried it in Manchester yesterday when there was a live stream of snow being on the ground but nothing in MSFS 2024.

I also tried the same in XP12 and that had the same issue. (This is not about a debate between sims, I just thought it was interesting to see both were like this)

 

Edited January 6Jan 6 by Zangoose

You remember FSX days when for some time of the year it was «hard winter» in some regions resulting in snow on the ground irrespective of the real world situation? Bummer that 20y later, the sim is still not capable of properly depicting snow coverage... even though meteoblue data would provide it, they simply use a too low res snow coverage map and obviously also one not updated very frequently. 

Well, just another half baked features still existing years after release although the evergrinning Jörg once claimed they dont like to add half baked feathres. For this, the sim is pretty much stuffed with half baked features tbh...

I could easily change the topic ... [Major beautiful winter with no snow. You wouldn't know in MSFS2024]. 😁😁😁

in some regions, last snow was mid november, not a single snow ball since then .. and well in sim, we have fully covered snow everywhere from november to april ... really frustrating, most people even have to disable live weather just to not see that bloody snow lasting 4-5 months a year when it doesn't exist at all in real life. Even a single option 'depict snow yes/no' would be so great to get rid of it but well i think they don't care about that at all.

So yeah sometimes little snow might be missing for a few days in Amsterdam or Paris but then in real life it gets away quickly anyway and the problem is less pronounced than huge regions which have fully covered snow for months when that just doesn't exist in real life.

I can't resist to comment when people complain about lack of snow 😄😄, because for me it's just the opposite and it's one of my biggest complain with the weather system, i just hate that persistent snow in some regions but it's a known issue that already existed 5 years ago and probably will never be fixed. But well .. to sum up, please don't add more snow Asobo/MS 😁😄

Real life (today) vs sim .. and it's like that since late november .. and will be like this till april/may probably .... i think last year mid march or april it was like 15-20° in some part of Austria and there was still snow everywhere.

looking at those screen, it's really unbelievable how realistic the scenery is in MSFS, even the sun shading is perfect compared to real life 👍, really great sim but well yeah the stupid snow has been bothering me for 5 years 😁

Edited January 6Jan 6 by Bad_T

Yeah, this stupid snow coverage bug ruins the use of live weather throughout two thirds of the year in the Alps. As Asobo is a french company, I do really wonder if they ever use real live in their own sim in the french alps and then think that it is OK like it is now. Really a huge immersion killer...

Let's just hope that now the major bug fixing seems to have been completed - and yes, your mileage may vary on that one - they can focus on adding features and most importantly of all in my opinion; give the weather a reworking in ALL it's aspects. 

14 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

Let's just hope that now the major bug fixing seems to have been completed - and yes, your mileage may vary on that one - they can focus on adding features and most importantly of all in my opinion; give the weather a reworking in ALL it's aspects. 

Put yourself in MS/Asobo's shoes, and ask yourself, "Will improved weather grow their console userbase?"

The answer is No. 

If You have Active sky, You can set it to passive mode.

 

Here is the description of AS passive mode:

In MSFS2024, Active Sky's Passive Mode lets the default simulator handle the visual weather depiction (clouds, precipitation), while Active Sky (AS) injects its enhanced atmospheric data, providing realistic wind, turbulence (Active Air Effects), temperature, and other conditions, bridging the gap between default Live Weather and full AS control for a more immersive experience without overriding MSFS visuals. It's ideal for getting detailed weather effects like thermals and clear air turbulence that default weather lacks, while still enjoying MSFS's native graphics. 

Also it will add better snow coverage.

Edited January 6Jan 6 by Wothan

1 hour ago, Bad_T said:

 

I can't resist to comment when people complain about lack of snow 😄😄, because for me it's just the opposite and it's one of my biggest complain with the weather system, i just hate that persistent snow in some regions but it's a known issue that already existed 5 years ago and probably will never be fixed. But well .. to sum up, please don't add more snow Asobo/MS 😁😄

Real life (today) vs sim .. and it's like that since late november .. and will be like this till april/may probably .... i think last year mid march or april it was like 15-20° in some part of Austria and there was still snow everywhere.

 

 

Funny.  I'm in the USA and thought the Alps would surely have snow at least in the winter season!  

I feel like the snow coverage/depth here in northern middle USA is actually quite good most of the time.  It may lag a few days behind a major snow event though.

I wonder what source they're using for snow depth these days.  I should try XA snow in xp12 to see if the Alps have snow or not.  What's the airport nearest your comparison photo there?

If they still use Meteoblue for this then this is their snow depth map: 

https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/maps#coords=4/51.51/-0.13&map=snowDepth~hourly~auto~sfc~none

or the accumulated snow map: 

https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/maps#coords=2.98/48.15/-11.53&map=snowAccumulated~accumulated-hourly~auto~sfc~none

Edited January 6Jan 6 by Zangoose

So i'm not sure if the point here is that asobo is doing it all wrong or that other people are doing it right or whatever....

Some examples of other Sims, or available MSFS software that does this correctly would be great.

1 hour ago, ryanbatc said:

What's the airport nearest your comparison photo there?

it's around 15 miles east from LSGS ... but yeah it's due to the very high mountains in the Alps, as soon as there's a bit of snow up there (8000+ feet) very high the full valley (1500 feet) gets covered in snow even if there is none at all (and that lasts for months, it it was wrong for a few days we wouldn't even complain). Always been like that unfortunately due the MS using very poor resolution from meteoblue i think (probably the cheapest one because they don't have much money 😄). So yeah it happens mostly where there are big mountains like Switzerland / Austria / part of France and Italy / Germany and other places in Canada or New Zealand (i think the popular Milford Sound is also often full of unrealistic snow even when it's 15°) .. 

  

19 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

So i'm not sure if the point here is that asobo is doing it all wrong or that other people are doing it right or whatever....

Some examples of other Sims, or available MSFS software that does this correctly would be great.

well i'm well aware it's very hard to model the full world and the job done is already great, but i think that a simple option like snow ON/OFF (or an altitude limit) would probably be easy to do and would make a lot of people happy. So those like me who just hate that bloody snow could at least put it away. Best solution would obviously to open the weather system and let third party improve it (i'm sure they would in great way) but they don't want to do that either so we're stuck with a so-so implementation that we can't improve (they want to do everything halfway instead of just focusing on the very important stuff very well).

Edited January 6Jan 6 by Bad_T