I happen to be one of the meteorologists who writes some of the TAFs in the central CONUS. I had to lookup what “NEMS” model was being referenced in this thread. I’ve been forecasting (aviation among other subsets of weather) for about 10 years now and I don’t recall ever hearing of this model “in the real world”. That should tell y’all something about the efficacy of whatever model this company happens to be brewing and/or it’s ingest into the MSFS “weather engine”.
Even so, most (reputable) NWP models are reasonably good at representing the current state of the atmosphere. It’s the mid to long term forecasting that typically invites dissimilarities. I understand that the development team is constrained by several necessities / limitations that are somewhat unique to a flight simulator, but I know for a fact that there are much better options out there that would provide whatever they need (albeit maybe with a little mathematics to derive certain subtleties). I use these better options almost every day.
While I’m impressed with the potential to graphically and physically simulate weather within MSFS, I’ve seen the (rarely) good, the bad, and the unbelievably ugly when it comes to their ingest and/or representation of the “live” sensible weather. With weather being such an important piece of the simulation puzzle, it’s really a shame they don’t have a professional consultant or resident expert to steer them in the right direction here.
The NEMS model is MeteoBlue’s own proprietary worldwide product that comes in a couple of different resolutions. More commonly used by commercial clients in Europe than in the US, since they are based in Switzerland.
They have several higher-resolution models of their own that focus on Europe exclusively, but NEMS is the only model with worldwide coverage that is made “in house”, though they also provide customized datasets from the standard GFS, ECMWF, CMC etc.
Thanks. Yes, with a little searching, I was able to find that information. My statement on the obscurity of their product and the variety of better performing options still holds true (at least in North America), though.
That’s my curiosity. Why reivent and pay for the wheel when free, arguably more skillful and capable options (i.e. GFS), are already available?
This is only my guess, but maybe it’s because they can influence the type of data Meteoblue gives them, and the format they give it in, but they would most likely have no such influence over the sources you mentioned. No one is going to make changes to data sources on which people’s lives depend in order to satisfy a game developer, even one backed by Microsoft.
I’m digging for that so badly! I would love to be obliged to avoid cells in TS/CB because of convective updraft/downdraft winds that are terribly unsafe in aviation, I would love to make my flight plan based on the weather conditions as I did in real life flying experiences during years, and as I do now as a grounded pilot by flying Xplane combined to Active Sky even if it’s not perfect yet but at least in XP you won’t fly your C152 through or under CB because of inevitable structural damage or/and stall due to convective vertical Air mass mouvement etc that could be lethal…
Before the release date of MFS2020 and based on what they tried to “sell” through advertised youtube videos talking about the new weather model based on the atmopshere realisitc data in time etc I was sure that the natural (and scary) elements of Mother Nature will be implemented (At the first place I bought the sim specifically for the new weather system/physics/dynamics/flight model) but see guys months later you can still fly your Cub through huge thunderstorm and it doesn’t seem to disturb many simmers unfortunately, based to the wish-list … knowing that the live weather is one of the most important thing to considere in Aviation then in MFS2020 there’s something totally wrong in terms of realism/immersion, you can fly safely in any severe weather conditions without any drastic impact/effects on the bird!!! … of course it’s beautiful outside, even outstanding as never seen in a sim so far, very great job from Asobo, respect for that, they are passionate, no doubt, but MFS2020 still have to provide a big amount of work to the area of physics/weather in order to conjugate realistically the cause and effect on the envelope of the airplane based on the weather conditions, and so on to make the best realistic flight sim in the world then. I wish it could be on the top of the wish-list but it feels that there is not that much “clients” for that precious request…
Hopefully Asobo will considere the weather as much more more important than adding contrails for the satisfaction of eyes-candy stuff which is nice indeed but I prefere to find a solid terrain to build a house before building a beautiful roof, let’s put that way…
I suspect that MeteoBlue was chosen because they are based in Europe, as is Asobo.
I assume that the NEMS model is available in standard GRIB format, (as is the GFS and all other government-sponsored models), but if the data has to be preprocessed into a specific format for use in the sim, Asobo would need to make use of a commercial provider/repackager of meteorological data rather than taking it directly from a government source like the US NCEP - even though the GFS is freely available at no charge.
With a 13km grid, (vs. NEMS 30 km), I agree that the GFS would be a better choice. Active Sky for FSX/P3D uses the GFS to supplement their METAR-based surface observations, and for winds/temperatures aloft.
The single biggest issue right now with Live Weather is that it appears that the server often does not provide the correct forecast hour data from the model for the aircraft’s current physical location and current UTC time. This problem appears to be more likely to happen late afternoons UTC than in the morning, and would lead to inaccuracies no matter what model is being used.
I strongly suspect this is an issue at the Microsoft/Azure end rather than MeteoBlue.
The entire eastern Mediterranean is covered with mid to high clouds at the moment (including Israel). Do you think that it is always sunny there 365 days per year?
I can confirm that my weather is loading properly, it was just a bug in the flight conditions display prior to loading a flight. Thanks for pointing the issue out!
Its been almost a year since launch and thelive weather is still bonkers. See attachment: Live weather and precipitation was saying correctly thunderstorm yet when we start the flight the weather was displayed as sunny with little clouds. Rain was totally missing on ALL flights.
I flew IFR today from Shoreham EGKA to Liverpool EGGP in the G36 departing about 11am BST. I was assigned FL140 and, from about Oxford north, was presented with mid level broken stratus at about 5000ft to 9000ft, occasional gaps. On descent towards Liverpool, experienced extreme icing which luckily melted by the time I begun the ILS 09 Approach.
According to SAT24, my source for satellite info, the weather for my flight was clear skies all the way. What happened? I flew IFR for the experience using the new GTN750 mod not for weather reasons.
The “Live Weather” in the sim is not supposed to be, or meant to be, the same as Real World weather. It is based on the MeteoBlue weather model. Look at the MeteoBlue website for what it’s supposed to be trying to simulate.
I honestly didn’t know that. I am shocked. If navblue’s weather modelling suggested thick stratus over the midlands on a day when the Surface pressure is pretty much 1027mb everywhere, they might want to use a better weather model.
I will go check the navblue data as you have suggested.
… knowing that the live weather is one of the most important thing to considere in Aviation then in MFS2020 there’s something totally wrong in terms of realism/immersion, you can fly safely in any severe weather conditions without any drastic impact/effects on the bird!!! … of course it’s beautiful outside, even outstanding as never seen in a sim so far, very great job from Asobo, respect for that, they are passionate, no doubt, but MFS2020 still have to provide a big amount of work to the area of physics/weather in order to conjugate realistically the cause and effect on the envelope of the airplane based on the weather conditions, and so on to make the best realistic flight sim in the world then. I wish it could be on the top of the wish-list but it feels that there is not that much “clients” for that precious request…
is it even can be accurate, or something wrong in the principle of the engine?