Yeah, I operate in the same fashion and as you note, forecasts aren’t always accurate. The nice thing about the live wx modelling is that at least we there is some level of reality in that the wx in the sim might be as forecast because the weather models worked out. I do like that because whatever happens is realistic; i.e. I’m not wasting time looking at a forecast that has absolutely no relation to what is going on in the sim. What I’ve found with the METAR change is that now I can usually rely on wx accuracy at the airport itself. Prior to that change, there was almost no way to be sure what was going on–ATIS was usually wrong and even the windsocks didn’t necessarily point in the correct direction for the wind. Of course the trade-off is (currently) occassional (at least for me) abrupt pop-ins of wx at the field which we both agree is immersion breaking, but disagree as to whether the tradeoff is worthwhile. Hopefully, they will just fix the pop-ins completely so we can both be satisfied.
I understand. I think it is also a matter of what we experienced in the sim. You encountered widely inaccurate live weather, while mine did not disagree as much prior to SU7. But now, I encounter more weather popping, and you encounter it only occasionally. So I guess because of the difference in what we encountered in the sim, we have different priorities haha! In the end, hopefully, Asobo lands with a solution that addresses both simultaneously.
Of course the real-world pilots will remind us that real weather doesn’t always match the METAR either. 
METARs have only a single observation from a single place at a single point in time, which might be 15, 30, 45 minutes ago or longer. Plenty of time for winds to shift and clouds to move. 
Great Example . Asobo - please fix this
I would have loved if that fog/haze was bulding up realistic. Like if METAR says fog then it injects the condition fog builds up in and the fog is dynamically formed instead of that popin. Then it can be moving around the place without be fixed around the airport with airport always in center of that. IRL the visibility can be different 1 second after METAR is reported.
Just to clarify what is happening here. I searched for a destination airport reporting haze. I departed another airport nearby that was clear. The haze popped up on approach instead of being visible from a distance.
Did you notice if METAR updated at the same time as fog appeard?
I had a hard change in winds when the reported wind changed on final.
I didn’t check, but it was reporting haze already before departing. You can try it near any airport reporting low visibility. Depart another airport some distance away and fly towards it.
I’ve seen it too. I thought it were that METAR was updated but have not checked that. Well, i don’t like METAR at all anyway, it’s just disturbing weather. I would much rather have good visibility than the fog circle around METAR airports. Well believable weather is a thing of the past now.
I feel that to make it blend well we need to know what METAR it will be before it’s reported to be able to calculate a smooth weatherchange over time. But it’s impossible to know what kind of METAR it will be in the future. Blend to me sounds like we should not be able to notice there is METAR in use.
Now it feels like we should accept hard transitions even that we didn’t have that at all pre su7 and no mentioning of them from devs before introducing it.
In theory the weather engine could use terminal area forecasts (TAF) to predict future weather and interpolate inbetween. But that is easier said than done because both METAR and TAF are coupled to time. Now in the sim, you can have live weather, but a non-live time. How do we want to interpolate the data? There are tons of possibilities, and you can hear different answers depending on who you talk to. But it would be a nice next project to look into once the current weather model smooths out the transitions.
But if the TAF is wrong then what? It will change between the old METAR into the TAF and then into the new METAR that is totally different than the TAF? Then we will have 3 different sources of weather at the same place? Meteoblue, TAF and METAR. I was totally fine with one as we had at release. The real weather doesn’t have 3 different sources.
We have different opinions about this. Some needs it to be accurate and are fine with unrealistic changes and some wants the weather to behave like it does in reality without changes between many different sources. I’m one of them that wants it to behave realistic.
That’s why I said “easier said than done”. Regardless of the implementation, I want the weather transition to be smooth (I am on your camp on that one). My comment is merely a response to “what would the METAR be before it is reported”.
If you want the best weather model, you will have to use all the data at your disposal, and use prediction models to fill in the gaps, and interpolate the different sample points for a smooth transition.
You can think of it as a table cloth with pins at different locations. These pins represent measured data points (METAR, etc.), and are fixed. Everything in-between is predicted/interpolated weather. Now, this table cloth represents a point in time. If you want weather that is also historically accurate and matches future forecast (in which case you will have to use TAF, etc.), you will also have to interpolate in time. You basically fit a multi-dimensional surface across all these data points in space and time to get a smooth transition, both in space and time.
Yes, it’s really hard to do. Especially now when we all know we didn’t have any kind of transitions before su7. Get what you mean but Meteoblue has really high detailed data of weather and then it’s hard to interpolate that less unspecific data from METAR and TAF to fit the much more detailed Meteobluedata. Meteoblue has really high detaildata for every single coordinate on earth and METAR and TAF has only really low detail for one coordinate or circle around that weatherstation.
Metar, Taf and Meteoblue can be much different from eachother and thats when we can really see the difference in details of weather between those sources.
Well, we need to hope that Asobo can get rid of hard transitions soon. We have no other choice.
I can give an advice to inject metar in at least 60hz over maybe a 10-20 minutes of time then we will not notice the changes in 60fps or less and the weather has changed before next METAR arrives. And inject RAW Meteoblue data everywhere without changes to it because it’s so much more detailed than METAR ever will be. Then if we get low visibility around airports that reports good visibility on METAR then it should be like that. No change to it at all.
Or maybe have a kind of toggle to exclude METAR from injecting data at all and only use Meteoblue and for those like METAR blending can use that. Thats also good for debugging, now we do not know if it’s problems with Meteoblue servers or the METAR-blending.
I blame everything on METAR because they changed it into METAR-blending but it can also be issues with Meteoblue data because they changed that system into more frequent updates in su7. Impossible for us to help debugging. Only tell what we think about it.
If we must have a mix of data sources, that’s fine – I just want what I see at time T at distance D to not become completely different at time T+1 second and D-0.1NM.
Have a single data point at an airport weather station? Slowly interpolate that data from a circle directly around the airport over a gradient out to a larger radius circle, instead of a large solid circle of identical weather.
Have a single data point in time, updated every 45 minutes or so? Interpolate to the new data over a minute or so, maybe, so it’s not incredibly fast.
Have haze that should apply to a specific area? Have it be consistently visible from any distance.
This is how fog should be, were realistic at release.
Yes, agree, that is the way it should be. I bet if that video was taken 5 min prior, you would be able to see that bank of fog from a distance, not suddenly appear out of nowhere…
Love how “patchy” it is - just like real life.
They HAD it correct. I still don’t know why they changed it.
Programmer had a job well done, and nothing left to do but twiddling his thumbs. Boss came by and said “Get to work!”.
Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
Yes
Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
Not only does haze layer show up abruptly, it can also disappear abruptly
Upvoted, had this issue on approach yesterday to MMUN. Weather looked clear until the runway was in sight, then all the sudden a nasty haze layer came into transition. It was clear it was the haze layer associated with the METAR, but like others stated, applying the haze layer to only the METAR radius makes for a very awkward transition and approach.
There should be some type of blending of the METAR with surrounding weather to prevent this. You should be able to see the haze layer well in advance and not be caught off guard during final.
Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
Yes
Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video: