And they can found IRL examples of all clouds that exist, right here:
I am very Happy Flight Sim user and Asobo make a good job of course but sometime in every update get people problems, and not all, but many people and also me having since the last update a live weather problem, only clear skies since yesterday, no clouds and that is really frustrating.
Cirrus historically in FS was either an âonâ or âoffâ thing. They are typically indicative of inclement weather or high humidity but itâs not something you can technically map out, in a FS sense. Itâs more randomized than other types of weather that we âknowâ will be there or form. As the other poster stated, itâs a lot harder than we probably think. From our end we just see as âplot data and have cloudsâ, their perspective is laughing as they drink their morning coffee. I laugh myself when I read people who have 0 programming or computer background knowledge thinking this is something that takes 30 minutes.
MSFS is the first entertainment flight simulation with a sufficient amount of data (atmospheric variables at 60 levels) to consistently determine the cloud type and coverage everywhere, all the time. The âhigh, medium, lowâ clouds at meteoblue.com, Aviation, are just a crude summary.
Convective conditions- Cu, Cb and their subspecies; saturated layers- St, Ns, As, depending on thickness, density, precipitation; top of PBL- Sc; higher troposphere, ice- Ci, Cs, ⊠Once the type and the extent of the clouds is known, then randomization should kick in to create a realistic, non-repeatable skies.
I donât think determining the right cloud is the problem of MSFS. Itâs rather the load on the graphics that makes FPS go down and the majority of casual pilots complain, as I believe MS has found out after the initial awesome weather simulation, and then dumbed it down at SU7.
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I think thats exactly what they did and as you say complains of fps made them make the weather more fixed to be able to control the amount of fps impact of those clouds. And that also made it possible to create those METAR bubbles right? If the global weather is more fixed then those METAR bubbles would not be as noticable either. But i can say they are noticable.
Well, i bet the varied realistic weather simulation we had pre su7 we will never have again. Thats a thing of the past.
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There is a request in the Wishlist for that: Cirrus clouds
I would say that all cloud types need to be improved in Liveweather and many types are missing. I hope Devs have that on their list. Repeating what I and many already said, prior SU7 we were astonished by the level of realism achieved with clouds, there was almost nothing to complain about, just adding the missing ones. But since SU7, regression happened without any explanation. The ones that remember how clouds were at FS2020 launch are complaining and are wondering if the sim will be back or not at the level it was.
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Since it seams that once again the next Su12 wonât be focus on fixing the weather, when is Su13 expected? I feel like i live in a perpetual state of hope since su7. This weathe system get worse snd worse with every update and they think itâs not worth focusing on it 
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Totally agree, only could see complains about the accuracy but implementing that actually destroyed the weather. I wonder if it really were worth it to have it more accurate? For me it were not worth it. I would rather pay to have it reverted. But since release of this sim i know that what i pay for may change into something completely different in the next sim update. If they added this new system as an optional feature i wouldnât be here complaining at all. But now we are forced to use this since su7. Hope they can add the old system as an optional feature as they do with the turbulence in next update. Itâs for sure possible to add options.
So sad accuracy is so important in flight simulators. The need for accuracy limits the developers of weather to actually create weather. How much they even try they can never get the realtime weather in the sim. Especially if it needs to be fixed as a METAR says.
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I also want to add this:
Actually Asobo tried to implement weather as weather is âchaosâ in the sim at release. Now we actually have less simulated weather in the sim. And those telling us that we only want eyecandy i can tell them itâs not. We want a simulated âweatherâ.
They tried to explain the weather system for us before release with those initial conditions they created weather with.
And here is a guy explaining chaos theory (what weather actually is âchaosâ)
The weather we had were as close as real weather we could have. And the community wanted that downgraded.
well some wants accuracy of weather.
And some like me want the feel of weather that behaves like weather (unpredictable and varied).
But i have learned those rwo opinions canât work together.
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Thank you for posting these videos! They explain wonderfully and in an easy to understand way why the forecast is sometimes incorrect, or actually, is never 100.000% correct.
Unfortunately this concept doesnât match well with the dominating tendency of seeing the world in black and white. So if the wind in the sim is off for a while, or it rains where it shouldnât, the whole system will likely be perceived as broken by a large portion of the simmers population.
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Iâm hoping that the current issue under investigation regarding no live weather at all, will encourage MS/Asobo to finally pay more attention to all the live weather issues introduced with SU7. The optimistic me hopes that in solving the current issue they may also intentionally or accidently resolve some of the SU7 issues.
The current issue of no live weather at all doesnât really bother me, as Iâve only used live weather maybe once a month since SU7 (each time just to confirm that it is still a messy downgrade)
What keeps the hope alive for me well over a year since SU7 is that sometimes the sim does render live weather like it used do pre SU7.
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Actually i donât care if we are casual or real simmers. Who and what decides if we are that? If we are playing other non simulator games. If we planning using METAR or want a weather system that feels believable. If we want a believable weather engine does that really means we are casual? Then all of those years since i got my first flight simulator 30 years ago i have been casual? Because i want a believable weather that feels unpredictable and varied. If thats the case iâm really happy to be casual. Donât need the weather be 100% accurate to a simple METAR line of text. I know itâs a tool for pilots to predict the unpredictable weather. I do not tell anything about that. But the real weather is much more complex than that.
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10:50Z - outside my window itâs a lovely sunny day on the coast of Lyme Bay in SE Devon, UK - in game itâs blanket fog at 0 ft ( and I did wait for the weather to load in ). Nearest airport is Exeter EGTE about 15 miles away, which going off the METAR does have ground level freezing fog, and a webcam of the coast directly south of it shows some sea fog in the area but viz is ok. In game I can hardly see anything 
Exeter airport in game does match the METAR, fwiw.
Edit: left the game paused to write this, at 10:55Z it went from âfoggy but vaguely visualâ at the 1500ft or so Iâm paused at to âcan hardly see my propellorâ. The plane doesnât have DME so I canât get precise distance but Iâm about 13nm east of EGTE, so that should be outside the airport weather area.
No problem. I also hope it shows why i think adding already known data into a simulated model destroys the feel of weather. Because real weather is never in a same state twice. Real weather or forecasts is not random either. Itâs just hard to get the initial condition meassured in 100% accuracy. That means a METAR is not accurate either because the METAR they used to inject the initial condition of those forecast models didnât turn out to be correct/accurate because as we all says. Forecasts are not accurate. Neither METAR or forecasts are accurate. Because if they were we would have perfect accurate weather forecasts all the time.
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Iâve thought a lot about this âbugâ. And for me it is the worst one.
My conclusion is that we get these towering cumulus that are out of place when there are 2 or more cloud layers close together. For instance âFew at 2300â and âbroken at 3000â. The sim is unable to produce 2 thin cloud layers as it doesnât know the thickness of each layer, and what ends up happening is these cloud layers merge together producing these horrible cauliflower towering CBS, instead of two thin layers of broken or scattered clouds.
When there is a single cloud layer reported in the metar, or 2 clouds layers that are a few thousand feet apart, the sim produces realistic and believable results.
I would like to know what the devsâ thoughts are on this theory, but I guess it is impossible to find out.
another thing that many players seems unaware is the total absence of high overcast, that thin layers of clouds that is the precursor of a weather front.
We have lost local convection with clouds interacting with mountains!
Thunderstorms are super rare!
World map does not match with in game weather.
We have lost all the other clouds formations, the most nominated being stratus cloudsâŠand other cloudsâŠ
We have lost a uniform overcast, whether from cirrus or alto stratus, or stratus clouds.
Clouds formation are made up of smaller blubs of clouds that appear often grani or broken up.
No more diverse skies thought the world and different latitude, but always the same everywhere.
Walls of rain that starts abruptly most of the timeâŠeven from smaller cumulus.
Clouds appearing or disappearing in a matter of seconds!!
Clouds stopping loading in after some time in game!
Those are some of the main issues since su7âŠreally how all of this is still not a priority?? and all of this mess because of METAR?!
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I wonder how many of us users expected a completely different weather engine before su7 were released when they announced the METAR integration? Were the complete change of system what the community really wanted? Generally i think most of the users were happy with the old system except the accuracy or am i completely wrong about that? If the Metar integration needed a complete overhaul like we had, were this post su7 weather engine really worth it? Because the only difference in accuracy i can see is the bad looking METAR bubbles that could have been injected with an option. Those bubbles doesnât require any kind of blending mechanics.
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The only logical explanation is that theyâve hugely simplified the weather simulation to increase the FPS. Many people complained about performance (they always have and will never stop) so this solution made more potential market place customers happy than unhappy.
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Without any explanation provided about SU7 regression it is the best logical explanation.
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But those that complains about performance were mostly those with older hardware. Are they never planning to upgrade their systems? When they do i bet they expect some improvments of the graphics. Those running on older hardware expect to run the sim on ultra instantly. If itâs not running at 60FPS at ultra setting they complain and get the graphics downgraded for all of the users. Thats how it works.
Well, iâm not sure what caused them to change the weather system this much. They said it were to get it more accurate. But i also think they changed much to be able to control the performance more.
I wonder how long we now need to wait to get it at least as it were before su7?
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