I think what still isn’t being understood is that Earth weather and MSFS / Meteoblue modeled weather are two completely different things. If you had two twin planets with similar atmospheres and orbits you still would not plan your flight using weather observations from the other. METAR should report the conditions in the sim, not drive the weather system.
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Greatly summarized.
I would guess they are not from an image because the clouds are animated on the map screen, at least they were the last time I stared at them intently. 
You should see them subtly moving. Either that or there is something wrong with my Tango. 
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Yes, I am seeing them moving too. I was thinking that if it is not coming from MB forecast, it could be like a satelite image animation from the last 2/3 hours.
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Yes, like Windy does. I see.
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Satellite based clouds/imagery is something that may or may not happen next year with the hopefully supposed weather changes.
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But instead, they re-introduced metar bubbles from the days of FSX. The best selling point of FS2020 was the lack of metar bubbles and a fluid and dynamic weather system. It still annoys me to this day.
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Well next they may start using static 2D satellite images as their source. Moving further away from the fluid and dynamic simulated weather system. I wonder if those satellite based clouds will have 60 layers of real time data.
That they started to do when they started to inject wind, temp and pressure from METAR. I found that disturb the weather already with sudden shifts of winds near airports.
Now all of the aspects of METAR disturb the weather. It’s for sure downgraded for us that want it dynamic and flow as a fluid. Air/atmosphere/weather is a fluid. Simulate it as a fluid is more correct than has it in a fixed state either we like it or not.
Turbulence is unpredictable and air is a turbulent fluid because of the low viscocity. And turbulence is weather more or less the visuals we see in the atmosphere like clouds. The higher we fly the less turbulence we get because there is not much disturbances up there.
The weather we have now feels more solid than fluid.
This is a simulator that should simulate an aircraft flying in an atmosphere. Why do we want the atmosphere to be in a fixed state in a flight simulator? Atmosphere is not fixed/solid in the real world. We had the weather formed by real reported initial conditions dynamically over time. Isn’t that more realistic than suddenly set it in a fixed solid state for 30-60 minutes?
The only issues i found with weather at release 2020 were the lack of reports from the actual weather we had in the sim. We should be able to plan our flights with reports of the weather conditions we had in the sim that matches the dynamic/fluid state of atmosphere at that specific time it were reported/observed in the sim. Not fix the dynamic atmosphere to match a METAR report. That can’t be done in the real world either. Can only report a new METAR report. I also observed 225@3kts all the time. And that i know were a data issue. Nothing that needed to completely change winds into fixed METAR winds.
Asobo could have started a server that we could have reported our own observations of the weather. That we have done since release 2020, but instead of using those observations to fly or help others plan their flights we used them to complain those observations didn’t match real world observations.
Even in the feature discovery video they released before the sim got released they said we could observe the weather in the sim as we do in the real life. And if i do that now i observe real strange behaviour that i never seen in real weather like hard transtions, metar bubbles and generic weather that looks mostly the same every time i observe the sky after su7.
Well, feels like asking to have an atmosphere realistic simulated around the planet doesn’t fit flight simulators? If we ask to get that back we get the comment that we only like “eyecandy”. Well then i agree i want the “eyecandy” back in this flight simulator. To me weather is eyecandy in the real world as well.
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Well, how can they plot that using a METAR? If they were using that for snow we would see a circle of snow around the airport only that report snow. The rest would be green even if it is snow outside that area.
Snow is in a solid state though. And that i don’t complain if it lay static on the ground. Then if it’s 100% accurate or not i don’t care actually. I bet Meteoblue is more specialised in simulating the atmosphere than how much snow there is on the ground. I think it’s really good to have some snow in the sim. If they didn’t have meteoblue we would not have snow on the ground at all. Maybe you want an option to toggle snow off? I would not complain about that feature.
But why is it wrong to like the old weather we had without METAR? Is that a wrong opinion?
I bet they do. But name one that doesn’t expect the weather to change in the meantime they fly that planed route. You mean because they have checked those reports the weather is then static and not able to change?
What would a real pilot have done in that situation? I think the real pilot would have adapt and maybe landed on an alternate airport.
Well, you got METAR implemented. I’m here asking to get the dynamic weather i had at release back as an optional feature now because the METAR weather has made me be in the forums instead of flying. I bet you should continue enjoy it as long as it last. Soon maybe it’s your time to be around here asking to get something back that got forced removed/completely changed that you like.
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Those two things have nothing to do with each other. That is due to the snow coverage data being taken from too low a resolution map.
Interesting discussion and of course people are entitled to their opinions.
My own is a bit in the middle. Personally, I want the weather in the sim to be capable of matching real world data. I appreciate the ability to use real world tools to plan my flight. And the fact that what’s happening outside my window (on a local flight at least) matches what I see in the sim is one of the draws of the sim to me.
Having said that, it undeniably feels jarring to have METAR bubbles meshing with the global weather model like the gears of an old Edsel.
It seems like there must be a better way of blending the two. But, knowing nothing about weather modeling in computers, I can only sympathize that it must be difficult, but affirm that it needs to be better than it currently is.
FWIW, I feel that the representation of how aviation weather actually works seems a bit misunderstood here.
Truly, METARs are typically issued every hour, which to some feels “static”. But METARs and ATIS can and do change more frequently when the weather has changed significantly through SPECI reports, at least at staffed airports.
Anecdotally, I have rarely flown a flight, either close or far, where the weather was nothing like the METAR/ATIS reported (except one time at an unnamed airport north of San Antonio and south of Dallas whose tower controller deserves a good punch in the nose…but I digress 
)
The disparity between the actual weather and “Live” weather in MSFS can be significantly greater, as many have noted.
I say this because, in real life pilots don’t flight plan and then just show up at their destination, hours later, all surprised. Pilots flight plan based on available current weather at their departure and forecast weather at their destination; and then the smart ones continue to adjust the plan based on available weather enroute.
Since the weather tools (and planning tools while we’re at it) in MSFS are far less robust compared to what is, or even was, available to actual pilots, it robs the sim experience of actually, simulating the real flying experience, at least on some level.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that, if MSFS wants (or must have) a “separate reality” weather world, then MSFS really needs a “separate reality” set of planning tools. Otherwise you are not simulating a fairly important facet of aviation, and sim pilots are left guessing what the weather will be at their destination, like in the days before aircraft radio.
This still won’t please those that, hearing of a typhoon over Bali, want to go see it.
But it will prevent sim pilots from, hearing of a typhoon over Bali, going to see it…and finding nothing.
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Well as long as forecasted weather and METAR reports same things i bet it’s much easier. How to blend in METAR data when those reports are completely opposite from eachother? And it’s only when that is happening we want it to blend right? If they report mostly the same we want Meteoblue weather all of us without blending. Either we accept a forecast model to not matches METAR all of the time or we don’t.
I can only accept METAR blending as an optional feature. We had Meteoblue weather only at release and i accept it doesn’t match real weather all the time. Exactly as i accept a forecast not matches the real weather all the time. I also know accuracy of forecast models will improve over time. If the forecast is 50% correct now then maybe in 3 years it will be 55%. Because they correct the future forecasts with known history data.
METAR data will always report same low detailed data. Will never improve.
How could they possibly make that happening? Not all of the users has a weather station outside their windows right? I have a local airport near me and they don’t even report METAR.
Well, hope to see an update that really focus on weather soon. To me it’s one of the most important aspects of a flightsimulator. I preffer it to behave like real weather over accuracy Hope we all get what we want in the end.
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The only METAR parameter that is “low detailed” is cloud cover. Temperature, pressure, wind speed and direction and (usually) visibility are precisely measured.
Maybe it’s messured precisely but not reported precisely. For example: winds are messured over a 10 minutes period of time and the average is reported. And gusts (highest messured windspeed over that period of time) are usually only reported if the difference between average and highest windspeed is more than 10kts. temp and pressure doesn’t change suddenly like winds and the visuals of weather and would not care if they only used temp and
pressure from METAR. Visibility is maybe also messured precisely but only reported in steps of 50m below 800m and in steps of 100m below 5km and in steps of 1000m below 10km and it doesn’t tell how much area is covered in low visibility. Also how thick the layer is also unknown. For example in MSFS the thickness of metar visibility is always 3000ft
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Well, I had hoped that this might be taken metaphorically as intended. 
But, as an example, when I lived in Louisville, I lived several miles north of Bowman Field and several miles northeast of Standiford.
And, on a day that I’d consider flying, I could look out the window and get a sense of whether the pattern was open at Bowman. A quick call to the ATIS number would give me the METAR data, or I could look it up, which would confirm or refute my suspicions.
Now, were I to load up Flight Sim and find it looking nothing like what I could see or what is being reported, I would say that this is not particularly “Live” weather.
Of course, I also understand that, with the unfortunate way that the METAR/ATIS meshes with the MB model, there are some immersion breaking consequences.
And so there’s the rub.
But, speaking only for myself, I would be disappointed if Asobo simply abandoned any pretense of trying to make the Live Weather actually Live.
As for METARs “quality”, while it may not give the whole picture of the weather over a field, I submit that it gives the operating weather to a high degree of accuracy.
It is, after all, the legal weather we use to fly.
And, if the vis or wind is only granular down to certain gradations, it’s generally such that it is sufficient to accurately portray the aviation weather at the field for the purposes of operating aircraft there.
I’ve sat in the big Level D sims and had the Instructor dial up and down the weather. 50m difference is very subtle at low visibility. And 100m or more when the vis is good is barely noticeable…the difference between seeing cars in the airport parking lot and being able to see what color one of them is.
So, while METARs don’t tell the whole story of the weather at the field (and thus are insufficient alone for displaying visually convincing weather for sim pilots flying at altitude, they do paint a very accurate picture for aircraft at low altitude intending to operate to or from that field.
Obviously fields with no weather reporting require some sort of interpolation or prediction to hope to achieve reasonably accurate weather.
It’s just a shame that the METAR couldn’t BIAS the MB (and, to a degree, vice versa) so that the seams wouldn’t be so visible.
Well, as you have said, the model should improve over time and maybe Asobo will provide that toggle so that everybody can tweak the experience to their preference. 
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That would be awsome I’ve learned to check Meteoblue webpage for weatherinformation. I don’t expect the weather in the sim to match anything else And i like that. I’ve seen it didn’t match that all the time as with winds at release for example. But that is not fixed by injecting METAR data as they started to do instantly when we had 225@3kts bug. I know Meteoblue doesn’t predict 225@3kts globally. It predicts wind really close to what METAR reports actually. The visibility i could agree is hard to predict but it’s really bad completely change weather model to implement that thing. Worst decission ever in my opinion. After su7 METAR has higher priority than Meteoblue. Really bad. Yesterday i could see a circle of rain around 2 different airports in the weather radar. Makes me instantly know thats not how weather works. Maybe in a cartoon that would be acceptable weather.
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Has anyone checked to see if this was entered as a wishlist?
If not, you may want to consider entering one.
So, for those that haven’t seen the above, you may want to participate in the vote there, and we should continue this type of discussion there as well.
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