No, there is snow even at low levels in the Southern Alps. Milford Sound is completely frozen over. This is not summer weather!
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Correct, the entire Southern Alps region is snow and ice right down to sea level. You’d be lucky to get it that low even in Winter! Only the “tops” should be showing a bit of snow during Summer (maybe above about 8,000 ft). And the margin is quite defined too - coming out of the Alps and onto the Canterbury plains (NZCH region), the line between frosty ground and green paddocks is only a matter of a mile??
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I had an issue like this today, but in Santa Monica, California, which was totally covered in snow. After quitting and restarting the sim and setting the weather manually, the snow was no longer present when I loaded in. Then I set it back to live weather and it remained snow-free, as it should be.
Exactly what i was waiting for in the recent update !! it take so long ! in my country there are snow on the ground everywhere on the road in msfs 2020 using live weather and i want to turn snow off to be able to see the road 
!
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Brief description of the issue:
I recently raised a post on the General Discussions Forum which Ii associated with weather performance. Having received some really helpful information via that post I now realise that my issue was not with weather at all but seasonal scenery.
Basically, flying VFR in New Zealand from NZNV (Invercargill) to NZMF (Milford Sound) using live weather. On line weather forecast at Invercargill, 18C, Wind NE at 6kph, high level cloud. On line weather forecast at Milford Sound, 20C, wind E at 2kph, clear skies. The forecast conditions at NZIV were mirrored by ATIS. Ideal, with virtually no wind if I have an abort on Rwy 29 at NZMF I am quite happy to fly down the fjord, turn over the sea and make an approach at Rwy 11.
Everything to plan, fly on headings to Manapouri then follow Highway 94 through the mountains to Milford Sound. No ATIS (or any other ATC) at NZMF and am very surprised to make the final turn out of the hills and find that the whole of the airfield area is blanketed in SNOW, the sea is frozen – and I am too high and too fast.
This flight was conducted on 3 March when it is late summer in New Zealand, not a time of sea level snow or frozen sea lochs.
I revisited the NZMF yesterday and the ground level visual conditions were the same with snow on the ground and the sea water frozen. There is no ATC at Milford Sound in the sim but the condition panel at the load up of the departure screen indicated wind at 2kts. The Garmin displayed the OAT as +16C. Again, not met conditions that would see snow and ice.
I took a look at the area on Bing Maps and whilst the condition of the surrounding mountains showed some snow on the tops it did not have the same levels of snow as displayed in the sim. However, it does appear to show that the Milford Sound itself was frozen. I was unable to identify the date of the Bing aerial image. I also took a look (shhh – keep this to yourself) at Google Earth and that was just the same with a very sort of geometric area of frozen sea loch.
On the flight yesterday, from NZMF to NZQN (through not over the mountains) there were other areas of frozen freshwater lakes in an area where, according to the Garmin, the OAT was 1+11C.
Clearly there is a bug here somewhere which would be nice to have investigated/rectified. >
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There are several places in Chile where this same problem exists. For example, in SCPU everything appears frozen since it is over 20°C and it is summer.
The snow cover data is supposed to be extracted from meteoblue, but when reviewing the snow cover maps, that area with snow does not appear either. Apparently the coverage data was left without updating for a while until now
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I submitted a bug report and this was the response:
Thanks for bringing this matter to our attention.
We just want to confirm that this issue has been tracked in our internal bug tracker. We’ll come back to you if we have troubleshooting steps to recommend before the issue is patched but in the meantime, we are going to close this report.
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A further comment to my earlier post and I don’t know if this anomaly relates to the visual conditions issue or not but I will mention it anyway.
If you look at the first screen shot in my post above you willl see confirmation there that NZMF is 10’ AMSL. There is no ATC coverage at the airfield (and that is something else that REALLY gets up my nose) so the only way to determine the barometric pressure is to us the ‘B’ key.
AS you can see I have an airfield altitude of 560’. If I correct that altitude:
Significant or not?
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Europe has fully entered spring, and the maximum daytime temperature has reached 15 degrees, such as Innsbruck, but the airport is still covered with thick snow, which is very abnormal. Can’t asobo escape the cold winter?
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I dont know how this can help but do you have any season mods installed like the ones from bijan habishi (i jope this name is right)?
Had the same problem in wintertime with no snow in sertain areas by using the autumn north spring south mod
Known since at least May last year. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for them to fix this.
Thread here: Snow partially at low altitudes at 19°C in LOWI - Bug Reports / Weather - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
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This is likely the data MSFS uses to determine if there is snow on the ground: Weather Maps | Live Satellite & Weather Radar - meteoblue
It is not very accurate when you zoom all the way out. I tested this a little bit in Norway and Sweden and the places that don’t show snow coverage when you zoom in but do show snow coverage when you zoom out had snow in the sim. So it’s likely the sim isn’t using very high-fidelity data to determine snow coverage. They probably have to pay MeteoBlue (more?) money for that
Which is understandable. I think most people have forgotten that the “winter season” was more of a cool feature Asobo could show off in product marketing than an actual season implementation. Seasons aren’t coming until later this year, at the earliest.
It’s good to let them know these issues exist, just don’t expect any resolution until official season support comes - IMO
I will try to ask at the next dev Q&A if they will be using higher-resolution data for snow coverage in their official season support
Same here in Sion, Switzerland and as far as Laggo Maggiore in Northern Italy. In reality it has been in the early 20s (celcius) here since April with no snow on the ground since late February and yet MSFS live weather shows complete snow coverage throughout the region. The same problem occurred last year. Kind of annoying. Ground level in Sion is around 600m ASL so not sure why their data sets would generate snow.
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Its also frustraiting to land in LOWI with a fully covered snow runway and in reality everything is green in the meantime and temp. nearly 15-20 degrees
Many times I find myself wanting to see the Bing textures instead of snow coverage during live weather. Thanks.
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Well… i’ve noticed too areas in Northern Italy where there’s still snow coverage.
For example at LIMW ground is all covered , and this confirms that MSFS uses lowest resolution (zooming out on the Meteoblue’s map reveal approximately the same snowed area).
In my personal opinion an option should be, instead of increasing the resolution and so the amount of data to be donwloaded, since the Weather Engine uses METARs, to use the temperature value with the lapse rate to determine the height of the freezing point, where snow probably begins to be seen on the ground
that’s not really a solution since you can have a nice spring-like day and the foot of snow that already exists will still survive
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Just flown over the Reschen reservoir (South Tyrol). Most of the lake is frozen and the landscape is covered in snow. Absolutely far from reality.
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Could we add a snow slider with live weather. A lot of great flight have been ruined because I’m flying in places that have snow on the ground in June that don’t right now. Like ENSB I have a live camera for the real airport and I just wish I could keep the great live weather but slide down the snow
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Been flying in the alps lately, the whole area east of Interlaken (Meiringen Air Base and the lake) is also completely covered in snow, despite it being 25 degrees celcius.
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