So we’re in 2023 now and the New Zealand update has been out for a little bit however with the exception of having METARs in only 3 major airports, I haven’t heard of any real weather fix/injection into the sim like in any other part of the world. I understand that in NZ they sell the weather info for their airports but Microsoft being the giant that it is I didn’t think they would release such an update without real weather. Sucks because just like I did for Alaska (also a major disappointment), I invested in most of the pay-ware airports already only to be disappointed again.
I’m sure I read in the forum that for NZ the sim has, weatherwise, got the same as real life. i.e. METAR from the 3 airports. So there’s nothing better than real life is there?
Yes only in 3 airports. And even then it’s not accurate. I just spawned into Christchurch where in real life it’s raining and in sim it’s sunny with clear skies. But anyway I was talking about the rest of the country.
VATSIM uses over 20 met stations from NZ which gives good coverage (and is the ‘real life’ met stations). Unfortunately the weather provider used by Asobo only uses those international airport met reports (NZAA,NZWN,NZCH and NZQN although unsure if this is being used). This is no different to older versions of flight simulator and it has always been needed to run an external met provider to get close to real time weather in NZ.
There’s definitely no live weather in Queenstown. Just checked. It’s a shame really since New Zealand is such a scenic place and the weather gets pretty gnarly.
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I wonder if this could be an alternative, no idea if they cover NZ, but I saw a video of a youtuber who flies Caribbean and said it was very real/accurate for there vs the sim.
I have REX Weather Force. Any specific airport you want me to check out?
REX pulls weather data from NOAA which is based mostly in the states I believe? You can give it a shot though. Try Queenstown. There’s default weather in the sim but I don’t know where it’s getting the info.
Live Weather…
REX Weather Force…
Pulls the weather from Christchurch…
I tried pulling the METAR up for NZQN using Google and all I found was the TAF from the AWC…
From the site METAR & TAF. Interestingly this is being pulled from Wellington…
From Navigraph…
I was able to get it through vPilot. The “VATSIM USE ONLY” leads to believe this may not actually have a METAR station in reality. In my 14 years on VATSIM this is the first time I’ve seen this note…
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Thank you for looking into it! Also, I just got a reply from a developer pretty much conforming what I already believed. There are only 3 reliable weather sources in NZ that the sim pulls from. That being Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. As for the rest of the country I’m told the weather data pulled is very low resolution and this not accurate or even close to the actual live weather.
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It is a shame there is no way to pull the VATSIM weather in to the sim as that would help a lot. There must be other countries that suffer the same limitation with few NOAA met reporting stations.
I have flown a few sectors around New Zealand over the last few days and come across a problem with the weather.
Below is an image of the METAR for NZWN (Wellington).
As you can see there are no clouds at all despite the METAR reporting scattered clouds at 1600 , broken clouds at 2500 and 4500. Other elements (wind etc…) all appear to be accurate.
Thinking something maybe wrong with the “live weather” (poor connection, service issue etc…) I loaded the sim at EGTE (Exeter).
As you can see the METAR is represented visually as expected.
Has anyone else had a similar problem?
In both instances I loaded the sim and left it alone for 10/15 minutes to load the weather.
With my post now merged into this thread by @TheSevenflyer I can see this is a wider issue. Politely put…it is astounding there is not a solution native to the sim.
Can confirm cloud/vis/rain not showing with real world weather in New Zealand currently.
This is a different issue to the very limited data sources for live weather in New Zealand (NZAA, NZWN, NZCH) which is usually interpolated throughout the rest of the country, and has previously been reported.
If you have Flow Pro there is a widget which downloads Vatsim weather every 15 minutes and creates that weather in the sim. ( Vatsim Weather widget on Flightsim.to). This at least helps get a little closer to NZ weather than Live Weather or REX Weatherforce.
What aircraft are you using in this photo?