Ground snow overlay popping in and out with distance

[Parorng]

Thank you for using the Bug section, using templates provided will greatly help the team reproducing the issue and ease the process of fixing it.

Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?

Both with and without

Have you disabled/removed all your mods and addons? If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the Community Support section.

Yes

Brief description of the issue:

Snow ground cover is removed when approaching the area, and pops in again as you move away. I’ve had this at airports and in other areas, particularly with weather themes. It is a LOD popping issue like the terrain tiles (and is probably related).

Provide Screenshot(s)/video(s) of the issue encountered:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/WDvKKl0T0c0

ICAO or coordinates (DevMode > Debug > Display position)

In this video: LFTD, but I’ve seen it in many other places too.

Detailed steps to reproduce the issue encountered:

Set a weather theme with light snow, say 5cm depth. As you fly towards the area watch the snow disappear, and looking behind you, watch it appear as you fly away.

PC specs and/or peripheral set up if relevant:

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue:

It’s been a while, at least a few months.

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Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:

[SmotheryVase665]

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?

Similar - Different location, and in my case, snow is popping under the aircraft,

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:

I hit this for the first time today (04/07/24). I was flying between Shiprock Airstrip (5V5) and Chaco Culture National Historical Park POI at ~ 7,500 ft. The red boxed area shows where the popping occured:

…
There seemed to be a mis-match between seasonal tiles. The base tiles were “Spring”, but immediately around me the sim was popping in “Light Snow”:

As you can see, the erroneous tiles were centered on the aircraft. & extended for maybe a mile? in every direction:

This continued until I was ~ 25 NM from Four Corners Regional (KFMN)

Partial specs & settings:
Build: SU15B v1.37.12.0
3rd-Party Addons: None, Community Addons: None
Flight configuration: Multiplayer: All Players. Traffic: Live, Weather: Live
i7-12700K (No overclocking), 32 GB 5200 MHz DDR5 CL40, Intel Arc 770 (16GB, v31.0.101.5333).
Graphics Tab: TAA, Render resolution 1700x960 @ 125, AMD Fidelity - 150, VSync - On, FRL - 100% MRR (60 Hz), HDR10 - Off, DX12B, TLOD @ 250, OLD @ 200, Motion Blur - Off, Other settings - all Ultra
Data Tab: Data Connection: All six options - On, Data Limit - Off, Bandwidth - Unlimited, Rolling Cache - Off
Developers Tab: Developer Mode - Off
MSFS Version: MS-Store, Standard, plus All WUs & City Updates.

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:

Click for 1-Minute video.

[F14TM]

ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Snow is loading abruptly in chunks and flickering while doing so.

I tried but couldn’t find an existing report.

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

All the time

REPRODUCTION STEPS

Find a snowy area or create snow and just fly at any speed while observing terrain loading. This is not happening without snow, these pop ins are only visible when snowed in.

YOUR SETTINGS

This video is done with TLOD 100, but I normally fly with TLOD 400 and it’s happening as well, just a little bit further in the distance. Still distracting. None of the sim settings seem to affect this.

MEDIA

[FlashySky7089]

I can confirm this bug as well; I’ve seen it too.

[Jumbojam2385]

Using the template below will greatly help the team reproduce the issue and ease the process of fixing it. Before posting, search for an existing report. If you are not sure it’s a bug, please first report in User Support Hub.

3 tags are required - add them in the tag section next to the title above:

• One for iteration (msfs-2020 or msfs-2024)

• One for platform (ms-store, steam, xbox, playstation, or xcloud)

• One for aircraft if related (start typing in your aircraft name in the tag section and pick correct option)

Feel free to delete this quote section after adding your appropriate tags.

ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Description of the issue: Ugly darker ground textures appearing flashing, then staying over the underlying textures, when approaching the related area. This happens only in winter with snowy ground textures (in non snowy conditions this happens as well, but the textures blend well with the underlying ground and the effect is barely visible)

Coordinate or location of issue: Area west of Geneva LSGG airport

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

How often does this occur for you (Example: Just once, every time on sim load, intermittently)? Every time

REPRODUCTION STEPS

Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:

1. Just fly an approach to runway 04 at LSGG, you will see those textures appearing on ground/mountains around. Weather conditions should be: cloudy, snow on the ground (e.g. January 11, 2026)

2. Used live weather. It could be well checked with weather as of Jan 11, 2026, around 15:30 utc

YOUR SETTINGS

If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.

What peripherals are you using: PC only, FS2024 SU4, normal usage, no addons

[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it? NO

[PC, MSFS 2020 Only] Are you using DX11 or DX12? N/A

[PC Only] What GPU (Graphics Card) do you use? Nvidia 3080ti

[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share? i9-11900k, RAM 32 Gb

MEDIA

Please add a screenshot or video of the issue occurring.

[DementedCorn327]

Could you add in the reproduction steps if you are using Live weather or custom weather (if custom, provide detailed configuration) ?
I would assume it is Live weather but this information is key for issues related to weather conditions.

[DementedCorn327]

Can replicate in FS2024 even if the patterns look different. Seems to be specific to this zone in Switzerland and not a global snow texture issue, if so title/description should be updated.
If you play with the zoom on the world map you’ll notice different resolutions from Bing map exist:

When au spawn on final 04 at LSGG, the snow textures discrepancies you can see on the left could be due to those different Bing maps images (my assumption):

[Jumbojam2385]

Yes, that’s also an issue, but the one I described I suppose is due to the fact that ground LODs (full of trees) load as I approach them, but there is an enormous difference in colors with the underlying ground, that is much lighter. This happens mainly in the mountains on bottom left corner of your picture (where “ESC Back” is written), that are outside that different Bing map. I attach a screenshot of those mountains, with the darker ground textures loading…

[DementedCorn327]

Thanks for the additional information and can reproduce the same using Live weather January 12, 2026 (FS2024). Spawning at 46.066027 5.857300:

[Jumbojam2385]

Thank you, exactly that problem!

[TFEV1909]

Still happening unfortunately. Would be nice if they could fix this.