Snow on the airport runway (real or date specific?)

This isn’t a bug question. It’s a question of how it is supposed to work.

Is snow on the ground based on live weather conditions in the location, meaning if snow appears on the runway, then that exact location literally has snow cover? Or like FSX, is it based on a specific date in time for that location, where it is assumed snow will have accumulated.

For example, LOWI has snow on the runway and around Innsbruck in general. Is snow covering the ground in real life on this exact date (18 April)? Or will the snow arbitrarily disappear on a chosen date of say 30 April or 1 May? Thank you.

Live weather uses real snow coverage infomation. It’s not very accurate but it’s not simply based on date.
You’ll notice that flying from a snowy region to one which didn’t have snowfall that there will be a transition to non snowy ground.

MSFS uses Meteoblue, so you can check their weather maps which include the snow coverage layer - I’m not sure how often they get an update and which resolution is used, Innsbruck isn’t shown in cover if you zoom in.

Always worth comparing the webcam which doesn’t show snow in the valley:

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CopperNu,

Very enlightening. I like the map and the live cams. Thank you for your quick reply.

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I flew in and out of Innsbruck recently. The METAR indicated a ground temperature of 22 degrees c and as I approached there was snow on the upper levels of the mountains. As I descended on the RW26 ILS the airfield itself and surrounding area was completely covered in snow, with the runway being 90% covered making it almost impossible to land. This can’t be correct and is completely unrealistic. There had been no mention of precipitation on the METAR, and the recent daytime temperatures were well above 10 degrees, so snow would not have been possible. Additionally even if snow had occurred recently, an airfield as well equipped as Innsbruck would have cleared the runway in a few hours. Perhaps the Sim should automatically limit the amount of snow displayed on tarmac and concrete runways and taxiways.

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I agree. There is no snow in Innsbruck for months (with a few short exceptions). A few days ago it had almost 20 degrees and everything was covered in snow. There seems to be way too much snow in Austria and Switzerland in the Alps than it actually is. I looked at the MeteoBlue snow map and can’t see any snow apart from the mountaintops, yet in MSFS 2020 there is still snow in most of the valleys. This is not great.

I assume the placement of the snow in MSFS is either with a very low resolution or misplaced, so in areas with close snowy mountaintops, the valley sometimes is rendered in snow as well.

Would be great if they’d add a sanity check for the temperature and at least would remove snow coverage at some treshold, e.g. >5°C - if they can’t fix the original issue that is, since meteoblue is able to show snow much more precise than the sim does.

Look at the MeteoBlue map. You can clearly see there is no snow in the valleys. MSFS had everything covered in snow which is totally unrealistic. Some of the valleys like Innsbruck are several km wide. There is no excuse to not process this correctly. It is in the Meteo data.

I came into CYVB on Saturday afternoon. It was a nice afternoon with temperatures well above freezing. While there was snow inland from the coast on the mountains, the caostal lowlands had no snow, as it should be this time of year. As I was descending on final, the METAR kicked in, and the whole landscape surrounding the airport became snow covered.

There’s clearly work that needs to be done both on snow coverage and METAR blending.

Well, I know this comment won’t solve the problem, but at least you’ve all confirmed that I’m not the only one with this issue, and that I’m not going nuts.