you seem to be missing the point that what most of us want (if I read it correctly) is what the sim WAS ONCE ABLE to do. as far as overcast depiction and layers and such. now its mostly dark heavy ugly cumulus.
9 Likes
Fog is just a name for a weather phenomenon. It depends if you search for a definition in āclassicā meteorology, aviation etc.
But usually the definition is that fog is when the visibility drops below 1000 meters. If itās above 1000, itās called mist.
If the humidity is low (in Czechia we have a set value of <70 %) and visibility below 10 km, itās called haze. If itās below 1000 meters, itās called heavy/strong haze.
So fog is just a name for a meteorology phenomenon. It happens when ambient temperature reaches dew point temperature and you reach near 100 % saturation.
Itās basically a low level cloud - be it stratus (at an airport near sea level for example, or stratocumulus/cumulus/whatever if youāre at a mountain and in the cloud itself). Then it depends on how thick and dense the cloud is, which in turn ācontrolsā the visibility.
I also believe that itād be enough to create a fog around and at the airport and let it behave more naturally. They are very elusive as it is.
Well, in this case, then weād need sensors that report where fog exists over the surface of the whole planet. METARS do this, but, there is no way to generally detect where fog is other than at airports. So, when the sim gets better at creating mist based on atmospheric conditions (which, in the general sense is what a cloud and all such phenomena are), weāre going to be stuck with this issue. They are working on it, and have discussed their plans. Donāt expect it to be addressed until next year. Itās not an easy problem to solve. Weāre talking āLiveā weather here.
Based on what Seb said, I think the way they are thinking right now is they have decided to create mist based on atmospheric conditions rather than developing some kind of algorithm that everyone will complain about how wrong it works.
Iām getting a little confused by the thread as we seem to be mixing weather presets with āLiveā weather now.
Really, Seb went into quite a bit of detail on this whole subject recently, and discussed the timeline to the best of his ability.
Personally, and Iāve been using the sim since pretty much day one, and Iām a low altitude GA flyer, I have not seen the cloud situation get either better or worse. Lightning got worse, and now itās gone and Iām happy with that. I can see perhaps airline drivers have possibly seen a change? I donāt know. Yes, there are some things I saw get worse, something about flying in the clouds and visibility of the plane or something like that. But, I donāt fly in clouds often enough to remember.
But, really, the whole point of everything Iāve been saying is, go listen to Seb. Heās said what theyāre going to do and what they think the issues are.
This would be the best but we still going to have forecasted atmospheric conditions. Thought that was what we had at release already and going to improve since release. Instead they added really limited atmospheric data from METAR.
I donāt think itās a bug. It was meant to work like this after su7. To me it was the wrong approach.
The idea of the METAR is to merge an accurate representation of the weather locally at airports with the forecast data from MeteoBlue (Seb describes how this works in some detail). They recently added better smoothing of METAR data with the forecast data thatās supposed to make the transition smoother. They know there is more work to do. Specific examples from people who can send data would really help them improve this system.
But, yes, for the foreseeable future, the main weather will always be forecast data, which, in my experience, can be really close to reality. Even METAR data can be an hour old, and, depending on where, even older.
1 Like
And we need to see the real weather with our own eyes to decide if it matches those METAR. Even if we see the weather with our own eyes itās not sure everybody would report the same weather condition. I think many of the users of this sim doesnāt see how the weather looks like IRL anyway. Thats why i preffer a 100% believable behaving weather than 100% match to METAR.
They could add a feature that we as users creates our own METAR reoprts from the weather we as users see in the sim.
Some could use this sim as training tool to observe weather.
Then we get accurate weather reports from the weather happening in the sim instead of from weather occuring IRL.
And also include simulation of AUTO generated METARS if user made reports not exists.
As Weather stations work IRL.
Not create weather with METAR only use them in the sim as they are meant to be working as a tool to plan our takeoffs and landings.
Yeah, thatās not happening, āLiveā weather is not real. Itās based on forecast, and METARās tend to be updated every hour. The MeteoBlue data is created, sent to Microsoft, who then has to massage it to make it usable by MSFS, and then it has to be uploaded. All that takes time, on the order of hours.
Getting real world real weather updated up to the minute is not possible.
The point of the simulator is to give you realistic weather thatās close to the current weather, not to duplicate it.
1 Like
Agree. But the thing i donāt like now is the use of many different sources of weather. At release we only had one source and that is much more believable than the current system that needs to switch between all of those different sources. I knew before release forecasts will not match reality 100% because they are forecasts. I didnāt complain either. As the terrain res they said those will improve when data is available. Same they would needed to tell us about the weather. At release they had 30km global res for weather in the future they may have 20km global res and that is improvement over the released 30km. 20km would be more accurate than 30km but it will not be 100% either.
2 Likes
Isnāt that the way things goā¦ Lots of people couldnāt wait for the improvements that METAR data would bring to airports in the local areaā¦
I am finding the weather significantly better in SU9 betaā¦
5 Likes
Good to hear, I am waiting for the public release. Last time I downloaded the beta, I had to re-installed from scratch FS2020 when they released the public version.
I would have said the same the day before yesterday. But like today I got in both Dublin and Aberdeen the towering mess around the airports 
who knows whyā¦
5 Likes
Or maybe wait for a better forecast model in the future with higher res than 30km. A METAR will never improve. A METAR will always look the same. Maybe accurate but always the same detail in the data. Itās like a photo of the local weather maybe 30 minutes ago. Even less detailed. A picture says more about the weather than a METAR.
Well, i must agree the weather is improved in su9 beta compared to what we had in su7. I really hope they can make the weather feel believable & close to what we have IRL in the end.
We as users need to accept we never going to experience the real āliveā weather in the sim. I think itās impossible to record the weather that is happening all the time and then simulate that at the same time in the simulator instantly when itās occuring IRL.
I would like the weather be simulated though and i accept itās not going to be 100% live.
4 Likes
SU10 a lot more will be fixed plus terrain and weather data will be able to be accessed by developers.
3 Likes
What I heard in a Q&A with SDK developers if I remember well, is that the API is not intended for 3rd party developers to modify the weather in FS2020 but just to export weather data so that they can understand and/or visualize the impact of the weather on the flight model of their planes for example.
2 Likes
Still, thatās some very good news. Depending on the amount (and quality) of data they can provide, we could even see weather radars along with turbulence and predictive windshear depiction.
1 Like
What is the visual difference between the coverage and the density which is setted at 1 ?
I fly now with preselected weather because i am tired to see my plane shaking up and down while cruising above mountainsā¦
Thatās just unstandable
Thank you
1 Like
I have not tested it that much to give you a detailed help. But density is how transparent/dense the clouds would be and then coverage is how much of sky is covered with that layer of clouds. I donāt know what the number 1 means though. If the coverage is set 0 then there is not clouds that can have 1 in density. Then we do not see any clouds. If coverage is set 100% and density to 0 we will not see any clouds because itās no density in the cloud coverage.
1 Like
Ok i will try to check this .
thanks for your answer
I think they could devide the cloud thickness of the lowest layer. I donāt really know how live-weather is rendered in the sim but i think it uses mostly the same thing as custom weather.
This is mostly what we see in live weather.
This is what we get if i reduce the thickness by half that value. The strange thing is coverage is also reduced when i reduce the thickness or height as you notice more of the blue sky is vissible. If i set coverage then that should control coverage, if i set thickness that should only control the thickness, if changes scatter that should only control that, if set density that should only control density. Am i right? Well, i think they set cloudlayers too thick.
Also if thickness is set too low in live-weather then maybe itās hard to get an overcast layer because it also reduces coverage. 
As you can see on this picture with covereage 100% real thin layer of clouds set and density to max.
Only increased thickness and now it covers the whole sky.
Who remember those real thin clouds pre su7? Those made me stop for some time and just look at the sky in the sim when they occured. Now i nevver see them anymore.
Maybe this is what they will fix in su10? If they use same layer system as custom weather they need to focus on them. They behaving strange when using them in custom weather.
2 Likes