I’m just flying over Colombia (SKCG to SKBO), and I am constantly getting Lightning from low level scattered clouds. In the last few months I haven’t seen much lightning over Europe, but almost always when I fly in Ecuador or Colombia. So South America seems to be particularly affected.
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This is an issue in most tropical regions with hot and humid climate, also in Asia. As soon as there are clouds and a little rain, the lightnings and thunders are everywhere. It’s far from realistic.
I guess they want to showcase their weather effects (otherwise it would be hard to ever see a lightning, especially in the US or Europe). But for more serious simmers they should offer an option to turn lightnings off.
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had this today is a much drier climate too. KAPA to KHOB. There were scattered storms forecasted along the way but it was just constant lightning and thunder coming about of small cumulous clouds. The clouds that actually looked like storm clouds had no lightning. It’s like it’s completely backwards. Landing at KHOB under partly cloudy skies and lightning just shooting out of blue sky. This really needs a fix!
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Agreed. There are no cloudy days in the southern US according to MSFS, only severe thunderstorms. Its gotten somewhat better, but it seems like if there is even a chance of storms in the real-world forecast, there will be severe storms in Flight Sim all day long.
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Same experience here. Flying now over south Florida over a broken layer at 7,500 MSL in the G36 and there is constant lightning (and accompanying thunder) in the clear air above the cloud deck with no CB clouds/buildups. The radar shows moderate precipitation in spots but with tops around 5,500 MSL its unrealistic. Reported to Zendesk and I’ve seen that this issue has been reported so many times by others.
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To add to what I mentioned earlier…why does the lightning shoot out of these non thunderstorm clouds above and behind me?
but to the north of my position is an actual thunderstorm and not one bolt of lightning was observed.
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Yes, I’ve seen that before. When there is lighting around, there is always a reason for it, but it is usually either located no where near where it should be, or travelling far outside the area you would expect to see it. In your lower photo, for example, I have seen lightning shoot in front of me all the way across a clear sky from that storm.
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The clouds, and all around, generating (?) the lightning are all quite low as can be seen - I’m only at 11,000 feet
Time for (yet) another Zendesk report (just submitted)
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If Asobo is just using the entire area encompassed by a high CAPE index to create lightning, then that is a very unsophisticated way of simulating lightning in the sim! It is a novel and interesting approach, but severely flawed logically.
That’s similar to producing rain in the sim for an entire area whenever the forecast is over 50% chance of rain.
Why not use the techniques developed and found to work really well by weather 3rd party developers? They parse METARs for reports of CB or METAR remarks section indicating lightning. In the remarks it clearly states something like OCNL LTGICCG OHD or LTG DSNT W TO SW.
For those remote world areas with no reporting stations use the CAPE index, but limit it to just the areas with cloud cells and only those cells with specific vertical development, Don’t produce lightning from small cumulus clouds as seen in the sim currently.
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Since the last update and weather “fix” I have seen a lot of lightning around my local area in MSFS even though there is none present. Seems where ever there is a cloud there is lightning now.
Needs fixed ASAP!
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Agree! I fly a lot out of Austin / Dallas and “live” weather always shows thunderstorms. Clear blue skies outside IRL. I have tried to spawn with “clear skies” selected and switch to live weather in-game, but it loads scattered clouds with lightning in EVERY direction followed by thunder. It’s just getting ridiculous at this point. Anybody have any tricks that work??
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The lightning bug is back with 1.16.2.0 
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The ■■■■ lightning is super annoying, followed closely by the ■■■■ rainbows.
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I agree that the lightning and thunder is back full time all the time and in places where there is nothing in the forecast to have this happen. Definitely the last weather update for the sim in this regard has not improved it.
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I hope more people start voting on this. We really need to make some noise on this issue. IMO this is the biggest issue with the weather right now
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Ridiculous weather modelling has snuck in once again. Wherever I fly now with live weather I seem to have this mysterious cloud covering that actuallyfollows me the whole journey and supplies me witha flashing light show every 2-3 seconds. I love this game but please come on fix this rubbish!!
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Confirmed here also. Live WX at KMMK. Mostly clear skies with thunder and lightning coming from a wisp. I really can’t wait till this comes up in the Q&A and the devs act completely clueless saying please send us examples we haven’t seen it on our end. Should be fun.
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exactly like last time they were like “i think I heard something about maybe around the bahamas or something?” with a totally confused look. I had lightning again KGEG-KWYS just appears out of nowhere. I do notice that whenever lightning does appear it’s always directly around the aircraft. You never are flying towards or away from it. Would be nice if they would acknowledge they are working on a fix
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I live in Austin and live weather is just stuck on thunderstorms at KAUS. It’s clear skies and 80 outside currently. Where does the sim pull the live weather from again??
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For the past several weeks, in South Texas we have had weather forecasts with a small percentage of afternoon pop-up thunderstorms which is our standard weather pattern. In MSFS however the weather depicts constant thunderstorms and it sounds like a battle zone with all the thunder.
At my home airport, KAXH in the sim, again constant lightening and thunder where in reality we haven’t had a thunderstorm in over 10 days… just the possibility. It is so bad that I use the REX product since it depicts reality, I do not like the transitions in REX, but better than being assaulted by lightening and thunder constantly.
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