With the dust now starting to settle a bit on the release of 2024, I’ve had some time to delve into live weather and see what 2024 could offer in the way of bug fixes, new features and enhancements.
There’s some welcome improvements such as better overcast depiction, improved cloud density, the addition of cirrus clouds and improved atmospheric lighting.
I’ve noticed though there’s still some areas which need a bit of TLC, which would further enhance the simulator experience, especially from an Airliner point of view and the challenges that can be faced from that. For me there are probably 3 main pain points which I hope we will see some work go into.
- Upper Wind/GRIB + OAT + pressure erroneous data
A bug which has carried over from 2020, sees the upper data for wind/temp/pressure get injected incorrectly at certain times of the day. Not always noticeable if you’ve had similar conditions from one day to the next in a 48 hour period, it becomes very apparent if let’s say yesterday you had a 150kt jet stream and today you only have 50 knots, as the bug injects yesterdays data before updating again back to current data. An absolute headache for airliner flying which can cause all sorts of issues such as autopilot disconnect during the shift, incorrect fuel burn and incorrect flight times, incorrect TOD and descent profile, amongst other things.
Feedback logged here: Very abrupt weather (wind) transition. Erratic wind behavior (Still present after AAU 1) - #448 by Ribase
- Lack of thunderstorms/convective weather in live weather
Another bug carried over from 2020, 2024 live weather still does not inject thunderstorms. Whilst this is understandably complex with data for thunderstorms limited, a good starting point would to be inject METAR reported TS. Many people keep asking for a weather radar in their addon aircraft, but as it stands this would be pointless because the type of weather you would look to detect with the radar is not being injected into the sim. A big part of airliner flying especially in the summer is weather avoidance, so being able to simulate this to some degree in MSFS would really enhance that experience.
Bug logged here: Where are the thunder and lightning...? - #443 by GeneralDee17
- Lack of reduced visibility from haze/smog/smoke/humidity etc
Whilst the scenery is stunning and we all want to enjoy it, quite rarely in real life can you see for hundreds of miles like you can in MSFS. I think if reduced visibility that is non-metar driven could be injected and blended with metar visibility, this would hugely enhance the overall scene of the live weather and with the new lighting would make for a highly realistic looking atmospheric environment. It would also further enhance night flying where currently the milky way is unrealistically visible at pretty much all locations.
Wishlist item here: Missing haze outside METAR vicinity
2024 has the potential to be a fantastic sim, more so than it already is. Understandably the initial focus has been on access and stability but I do hope once the dust fully settles that the devs don’t leave the weather simulation behind and continue to enhance and improve it.