Line of thunderstorms/thunderstorms not rendering correctly

[milk1685]

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?

No

Have you disabled/removed all your mods and addons?

No

Brief description of the issue:

Rendering of thunderstorms/ lines of small isloated storms is not working, its like you can look straight through the storm and theres is no turbulence, no lightning, no nothing in the way

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

Provide coordinates (DevMode > Options > Display position)

Literally directly over El Paso, TX

Provide time & date of the observed Weather issue

03/07/2023 1732EST

Detailed steps to reproduce the issue encountered:

Just fly your sim, youll see that the storms are not producing properly

PC specs and/or peripheral set up if relevant:

Not really relevant since my PC isnt causing this issue

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue:

Since sim update 4/ earlier builds of the sim, are there any plans to do something to get atleast the towering CBs back?

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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:

[milk1685]

I understand their partner is MeteoBlue, but whats the point if its not been working for the past 2 years, let other developers come in just so we can get some proper METAR injection and storms to produce via METAR injection weather programs, even if its not 100% “live”. Makes no sense to me… I wanna feel like im flying the sim I was sold originally, and how it was before, but this is a serious immersion killer, of all things to not focus on this is probably most important alongside flight dynamics and sim performance. Is there any hope they plan on releasing a Sim Update that just focuses on weather? Not to sound like im taking my frustration out on Asobo/Microsoft, they are doing a fantastic job overall, constantly updating the sim etc… very thankful for that. I know they have a boat load on their plate already

[Ahmad310x]

I agree with you. I don’t know why MS/Asobo are being the way they are with the weather engine. If they would open this up to 3rd parties i think we would see much more improved weather. Just like what the Working Title Group was doing with making the default a/c better, there are people out here that would be able to do amazing things with it. Maybe the have something planned in the future, but for me the weather engine is the biggest disappointment of this sim so far. It just does not give you real life feeling. I hope there are major changes to the weather engine/clouds for future updates.

[CooledMage2970]

Live Weather is broken if it cannot depict TS’s or fronts correctly. That this continues to go on is outrageous. More disappointed in the enthusiast community who seem not to care and will not voice enough concern to make a change.

[Boscoh1]

+1. Highly disappointing this has been broken for almost a year now, maybe longer.

[BluMac2251]

There is a noticeable lack of accurate thunderstorm activity in MSFS currently. This includes cloud structure, height, and precipitation. Given how impactful thunderstorms are to operations in real-life aviation, a more precise rendition of thunderstorm structure must be implemented into this flight simulator.

I must note that other implementations, such as the weather radar API, greatly depend on MSFS’s capability to render accurate high-altitude precipitation and dense cumulonimbus cloud development, which currently need to be significantly improved. (please upvote)

Here is a recent example of the issue at hand:

Below is the screenshot of how MSFS depicts a current weather system. The crucial thing to note is that this screenshot was taken while cruising at FL240. Most of the clouds were below FL240, as was the precipitation.

The following screenshot shows detailed parameters pertaining to this system. The top altitude of precipitation (echo tops) is FL350/FL400, moving southeast at 21kts, as indicated by the blue text overlay. I’ve marked the approximate location of the MSFS screenshot on the map below.
As you can see, the real-life data shows that this storm system developed much higher into the atmosphere than MSFS live-weather did. It is also important to note that the echo tops do not indicate max cloud height. Cloud heights extend even higher than echo tops and are more difficult to quantify with radar. As an estimate, I’d say the highest portion of the cloud system developed into FL500, drastically different from what MSFS depicted.

This is a recent photo of a multicellular storm similar to this. The cloud structure and height are much different from that of MSFS.

Another similar storm system view from a cruising aircraft in real life. The clouds extend well into the atmosphere, and above the plane. (not my photo)

As I stated, this would significantly increase the usefulness of other wishlist items, such as weather radar and realistic dangerous weather physics. It would create more realistic situational use for weather radar systems in MSFS.

I hope this will be seriously considered, as it would add much more realism and immersion to this platform.
Thank you.

[mbraortns]

I hope Im not wrong in my near certainty that all of these things we miss such as thunderstorms and mid and high level cloud decks and in cloud turbulence… I hope that the 20km CFD simulation asobo is working on will bring all that back.

Plus it’d be great if they could finally add some global haze.

[lknfly1]

Voted!

[SaintedGolf136]

Voted! I couldn’t agree more.

[SaintedGolf136]

I don’t mean to sound dumb, but what is the 20km CFD simulation?

[mbraortns]

Live Dev Q&A - May 25th, 2022 - Microsoft Flight Simulator / News and Announcements - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

heres what Seb said:
Something we are currently working on that will not be for Sim Update 10: The problem with this system is that it works very locally and generates local thermals that don’t combine when they go up. The air that goes up somewhere else needs to go back down. It doesn’t create any vortices, turbulence on the side of thermals, anything like that yet. So there’s research work going on that took the CFD of the airplanes and expanded that 20-ish km around the plane. So that’s a really, very, very, very big CFD running and it goes pretty high as well. And we hope that sometime this year, we’ll to get that to simulate the airflows in the atmosphere to get nicer updrafts that can combine so that only bigger fields get updrafts when you go higher up, that you get vortices with air going back down, and all sorts of different local wind effects that we don’t really get from live weather. Live weather gives us wind gusts and direction, but it’s something a bit more for the area.
endquote
also see this:
New Propeller | CFD | Soft Body Simulation - Aircraft List - General Discussion & Interests / Aircraft - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

[ogu1271]

The sky lighting and cloud variety could really do with enhancement. You should ‘feel’ like you are in the clouds, too.

Edit - I don’t think the CFD will change the cloud shapes in any way, it only affects the flight modelling to the aircraft flight surfaces and engines.

[mbraortns]

@ogu1271

The sky lighting and cloud variety could really do with enhancement. You should ‘feel’ like you are in the clouds, too.

definitely!

but once Seb finishes messing with the CFD, maybe they will find a few extra compute cycles to bring back the appearance of some of those clouds/skies…hopefully.
PS:all pics are from Premier 1 Driver videos.

[AndyXPO]

What is also infuriating is usually, where there should be a couple of layers of low overcast you get towering CBs and thunderstorm type clouds!!

[CooledMage2970]

The lack of TS makes night flying very boring……flashes in distant TS’s would do a lot to liven things up realistically. And as previously mentioned some planning to go around the storms would be great.

[BluMac2251]

another instance of 0 vertical cloud development… I’m impressed that this isn’t a top issue atm

This screenshot is from FL200

Cloud tops should be around FL450-550

[Moach6908]

It kinda is a top issue.
see: METAR keeps disrupting the weather/ bugged weather/Cumulus/CB clouds only/no medium to high cloud coverage - #1424 by JustEmperor4724

What you’re noticing here is the absurd detrimental results that occur since the misbegotten addition of Metar Blending - It used to be that MSFS could render cloud fronts significantly better than it has done since SU7.

This is a sad state of affairs and there are a number of players that have been wholly unable to enjoy the sim from frustration over this.

You are correct that it should be considered the single greatest issue in the sim. All other bugs of comparable severity can either be modded away or are rare enough that they really don’t detract as much from the experience*.

*CTDs, for instance, happen only occasionally. So even if they’re “really bad” as far as bugs go, they aren’t a consistently degrading factor like this has been. Other major flaws, like the complete disregard for type-matching of Live Traffic aircraft, are all things that we can often laugh away, if not fix ourselves with clever modding.

The Weather Downgrade Problem, however, is not so easily dismissed. It cannot be fixed by modders due to the SDK’s full weather lockdown, nor is it sufficiently inconsequential that can it be tolerated, even in jest. It is just too sad.

That puts this giant gorilla of a monkey entirely on Asobo’s back.

[BluMac2251]

Oh, ok, that’s great. I don’t frequent these forums very often, so I didn’t see that. I appreciate it🙂
But yes, I agree. It’s incredibly disappointing to see, especially given rainy season just began here in South Florida, along with many other places. Likely, we won’t see this fixed anytime soon.