The lightning seemed a little too much for me yesterday compared to the real-world conditions. But it’s better than none at all.
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I just did another local flight (south east Florida). It’s relatively calm out there IRL, but in the SIM it was the worst lighting storm I’ve ever seen.
I had a headache by the end of the flight.
They intentionally killed the thunder and lightning due to complaints about it being too prevalent:
Dev Q&A Overview - Official Microsoft Flight Simulator / News & Announcements - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums
I’m sure they’d be happy to cancel it again if people complain enough.
Don’t throw this back on the users .. If Asobo are unable to code something (it appears for any effect e.g. icing, rainbows, atmospheric lighting, flight / ground physics… ) they introduce is overkill and they decide to nerf it, rather than correctly code it, that is NOT any fault of the user.
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Before people would go to where storms were listed, but they wouldn’t see any lightning. So now if people can go to where lightning is listed and be able to see it, that is great. They have the prediction model working great for the condition. Now if they probably half the occurance rate of a lightning bolt happening, that should be great. It shouldn’t be a matter of take this with no modifications or have all the code backed out. That would be just silly. The major hurdle was getting the prediction model working well, and it seems like it is now.
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Well, let’s not forget that lightning strikes are currently not reflected by real data for some reasons, maybe because meteoblue does not have/own or provide the data. Instead they are calculated on data available, so they won’t reflect what you see on the outside.
Maybe a better general approach on real world thunderstorms would be incorporating the data from blitzortung.org - they basically use radio signals to determine when, where and how intense a lightning strike or flash was. Their maps are used across many weather apps and they even provide their own RF receivers to further enhance the coverage.
They listed all the stations they use across the globe over here: https://www.blitzortung.org/en/station_list.php
As their maps are licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 so these at least can freely be used also for commercial projects with mentioning the author, however I was not able to find an actual note about if they provide an API beyond the one used to show dots on maps 
In general, as per their disclaimer/contact page these guys however can share their RAW data:
The data shown on our website is provided only for private and entertainment purposes. […] The use of our raw lightning data is allowed only to the participants of the project or to those we explicitly have allowed it.
Maybe Jörg could get in touch with these guys about a permission to use the raw data or the data used on maps (X/Y coordinates + intensity) in future (hint, hint) 
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I’m in the category of too much lightning. A heavy rainstorm passed across my home in Scotland at the weekend up towards Inverness. No lightning in the forecast no lightning seen by me. I took a flight to Inverness in the sim while it was ongoing and while visually nice the lightning should not have been experienced. Both Meteoblue and Windy had no lightning indicators.
If it was Saturday at around 20:00 UTC the source I provided above actually recorded lightning within the area - so in that case the prediction would not have been that off:
The intensity and frequency is another topic - MSFS can only estimate that roughly as far as I’m aware.
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Thanks @Delta2k5 I’ve not come across that site before and will certainly check in future. To be honest the exact time isn’t a problem with me as I don’t expect to see exactly in the sim what I’m seeing out of my window! The fact that some lightning was in the vicinity around the time of my flight makes me a lot more confident that Asobo has got it (approximately) correct
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Well said, this is my intent when creating this. Let’s focus on the wins (what we have in this patch is amazing).
But there is also room to provide further constructive feedback and keep making it better; even if this merits being lower priority to the many other issues still present in the sim.
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I already had lightnings with live weather on SU2, for example near Bangkok this days
Just flew trough a tropical thunderstorm in Panama - lots of lightning strikes, but not the slightest sign of increased turbulence. Turbulence settings are “realistic”! The usual slight wiggling, not more. Inside the cloud the rain was pouring, nearly zero visibility, quite dark. But the Bonanza flew like on rails.
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Did you disconnect the autopilot?
The lightning is so cool and they did a great job with both the visuals and the boom sound. Did lightning exist in SU1 or is it just now that it came in to the game?
Well one thing everyone can agree on. Lightning is working…lol
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Hand flying all the time.
Lightning looked good southwest of Palm Beach, Florida this afternoon/early evening I continued by Atlantic coast tour in the mighty Grumman Albatross.
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Some very realistic looking storms over Northern France - Le Havre area, 18:20 UTC (13-JUN-2025) . I’m quite impressed with the clouds too.
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