Low Stratus in SF Bay Area (clouds exaggerated)

Spring and summer in the Bay Area usually means low stratus clouds, ceilings around 1,500’ AGL, tops maybe around 3,000’ or so… is my educated guess.

Tonight the METAR at KSFO reports FEW016 BKN180. Okay, sounds about right, though the broken at 18,000’ is a bit unusual. So why does the sky look like towering cumulus clouds about to erupt into a thunderstorm? I notice it’s done this more than once. I’m using default weather.

Do others experience this with what is supposed to be low stratus/ “high fog”? Is this something the devs are aware of and have a plan to fix, somewhere in the near to mid future?

I’ll try to include an image below.

This has been a problem since sim update 7. It has really ruined the sim for me I’m afraid. It’s depressing seeing how bad the weather looks compared to before SU7. I believe there is a plan to fix an issue of cloud thickness at lower altitudes in SU10. I really hope they can do this and get rid of this towering mess one sees pretty much everywhere. I would be so pleased if it worked and the weather looked as good as before SU5 and SU7, but I don’t hold much hope sadly.

Well sir, I share your frustration, and I’m glad I’m not the only one who notices it-- or the only one having the issue. That being said, yes I too wish it would be fixed, but with all the things on their plate, I suppose that patience is the requirement.

I never noticed at what point things got worse, but since a lot of people have complained about SU5 to SU7’ish area, I trust that’s where quality diminished.

I seem to recall a picture of SF from above, taken before the sim was even released in Aug 2020, that showed low stratus over the Peninsula at its proper expected height. Now whether or not that was accomplished in “real weather”, or it was manually made (with careful adherence to cloud bottoms and tops settings), is another question altogether.

Cirrus, altostratus, and the higher translucent clouds are also lacking, unless I make it a point to make them myself. But then it’s continuous and unchanging in manual mode, as I’m sure you are aware of.

At some point, we can only hope the issue is addressed, but until then I do have my presets.

[Emphasis is mine]

So, which is it? :wink:

No need to answer. I’m just jerking your chain a little. :yum:

METARs only have the cloud bases, not the cloud ceilings. The FEW clouds with a base of 1,600 ft might have cloud tops at 2,600 ft for a 1,000 ft layer. Or they might have cloud tops at 16,000 ft which means there is a 14,400 ft layer. It is impossible to tell from the METAR.

That’s a very logical explanation. I had not thought of that before.

Too bad then that there’s no way to size up the likely height of clouds by having the program interpret cloud type, so that height can be guesstimated. Though I realize that the basic raw METAR is probably the only way for “real weather” to communicate with the “simulation”.

Thank you for your reply.

Determining the cloud tops is difficult IRL as well. I don’t know if is required IRL for Pilots to submit a PIREP before landing specifying the cloud tops, icing, and turbulence encountered during the descent. I submitted a “wishlist” item to include a PIREP feature in MSFS. If this is ever included in MSFS, the reports would need to be fed into Live Weather.

I think that would mean even more transitions in weather. I don’t like transitions in weather. We didn’t have any kind of transitions pre su7. How often is PIREP reported? If they are reported more frequent than METAR that means they most likely not match either and it also means much more frequent transitions in weather needed? Why the need of those less detailed reports to create weather? Those kind of reports is hard to use to simulate weather. Weather should be organic. METAR is not. I had much more organic weather pre su7.

And where on a METAR does it tell it should be stratus type of clouds for example? It just tells how much coverage of the sky should be covered by clouds. That means any type of cloud is matching METAR or PIREP. It also means we get generic looking sky because a METAR doesn’t know where to place those clouds in the sky. And a PIREP i bet is only reported from the heading the pilot looks at. Much of the sky that is not covered by that PIREP. That PIREP is going to be streched out and be the same in every direction. Meteoblue reports clouds in every direction and on every single coordinate and they are also calculated to fit with the rest of the world. Pilots needs to make a PIREP of every single coordinate on earth to be blended in well with Meteoblue. Also METAR needs to make a report of every single coordinate on earth to be blended in well.

They report different things and at different times. They are not supposed to match. In addition to clouds tops, PIREPS may contain icing and turbulence information not available any other way.

Meteoblue reports both turbulence and icing. I want Meteoblue only. Nothing else that doesn’t fit that system added on top of it. Weather doesn’t behave like that.