For mist, this would be preferable. Any time a METAR reports mist, the new mist/haze system could adjust the visibility to the METAR. Most weather models don’t simulate mist at all. One problem I can anticipate is that at some stations, low visibility is extremely localized. Airports located next to rivers in the eastern US can be covered by very localized fog in the river basin. It would be hard to tweak the blending system so that it doesn’t produce fog and mist that is too widespread.
For haze, I would humbly suggest that MeteoBlue use one of the new aerosol products like the GEFS-Aerosols (produced by the US National Weather Service). It is a global model product that includes chemistry simulation for suspended aerosols (dust, smoke, sand, etc). This would allow a decently accurate depiction of widespread summer wildfire smoke, for example.
But what makes you think you cannot plan accordingly using weather from a weather-engine that utilizes historical real-world data. In my opinion the ability to plan isn’t by the least affected by the timeline of the real world weather. If you’re a pilot preferring to rely on eyesight for initial assessment of weather conditions than don’t look outside the window, but fire up the sim and observe. Honestly I’d find it much more immersive needing to plan my flight using parameters determined by the conditions in the simulator, because there the results will indeed me more accurate to the environment I am flying. When relying too much on current real-life condition, where the environment works differently you will get a “fax-effect”. A fax always loses information each time it is being relayed. And I see the same happening here, when we use METAR, TAF and any other kind of planning information from a source that works differently to the environment we are flying in. Let’s face it no computer on earth (even if we combine all the processing power), will be able to simulate real world atmospheric dynamics 1:1 with all it’s variables. If however METAR, TAF, etc… are being writen by the simulator you get an unaffected, unfiltered set of information that corresponds to the world you are flying in (in this case the simulator).
For the same reason I kind of prefer AI-buildings on satellite rather than PG-buildings. The latter my look like the real thing, but the former is a better fit for the visual engine of the simulator and has lights honoring the window shapes. Not to mention PG-buildings also suffer from baked static imagery, like window reflections and time-of-day specific coloring. Not to mention the higher resolution of the texturing and modeling and the equally sometimes not so smooth transition from PG to non-PG. While AI-created buildings might not be 1:1 their real counterpart, what really matters is the overall impression of the city, which I believe is well done. A city in Africa looks like a city in Africa and so on.
Oh, I completely agree that it would be possible to plan using historical weather. I’m not saying that I wouldn’t be able to plan that way. My point was more about the experience. To me, one of the biggest joys of MSFS is being able to fly in a way that mimics real-life. If I’m looking at the current satellite image, I can decide “I’d like to fly near that snowstorm and see what the weather is like,” or “The weather outside is lousy. I’d like to do a virtual flight to somewhere warmer.” For me, there’s something cool about flying in the weather that is currently happening – even if it isn’t 100% accurate. I never fly on VATSIM, but I enjoy flying in current weather.
perrry I already know that !
with the “these tools do it well” I mean people should use them if they want to have metar - related weather and leave the forecast (stupid expression) alone, that’s what I meant.
I was one of the first to " run up a storm" in the forums when I heard metar !!! !
But I am a man of compromise and I am happy when many are happy - and the metar interpolation for certain would have already worked without transition (before SU7)
And the others values could have been added (e.g. visibility layer) if they really worked.
I don’t know if you understood my post above correctly - it was about the METAR not really working or being “useless” for a SIM in terms of visualisation! (as the only source - but the values are certainly helpful as a addition but only if without transition that is also clear )
No I understand your point of view and i am perfect OK with it. But why not instead of using a real-world satellite imagery use the “satellite” imagery in the simulator. And the best part is, you have 1 or 2 days time to actually fly in the weather you just saw. I’d be really disappointed if I couldn’t fly now in a specific condition, because I am at work . What is happening in real life will still happen in the simulator.
Or perhaps have an option to use one way or another. I think historical weather should be a thing in general (but that’s another topic), then I can choose to fly in whatever happened in real-life at any given time. Well however long going in the past is realistic for the servers.
But let the progress that’s being made by MSFS in the community when it comes to weather injection be the standard for online flying. So we can use the best possible way to have weather in the simulator and at the same time be able to fly online on a multi-platform network. It’s a pity to see new and better ways of doing things being held hostage by appeasing the community.
That is why the METAR should be accurate to the weather (in this case the simulator weather) and not the other way around. I feel like many people demanding correct conditions and shouting “METAR” are confusing the difference.
Weather and clouds are broken now and need to be fixed ASAP. Roll back to the old system if you have to but this is utterly unacceptable. I have no idea how it got released in such an obvious broken state were all clouds touch the ground constantly, wherever you actually are in the world.
Online ATC relies on all clients (using different simulators) having the same weather information (RW METAR) so METARs derived from dynamic FS weather - that won’t fly with VATSIM et al.
But I’d wish there would be an option to set FS either way because I could see what kind of retrograde step that is when I made a short hop from KTEX to KASE yesterday - haze popping out, different haze popping in, then haze and snow on mountains popping out and then snow popping back in…boo, and I was quite happy not having that kind of crapola in FS so far.
So what I’d like them to do* is that they focus on getting the dynamic, prediction-based weather running satisfactory, then dealing with blending METAR data with that in a separate branch and making that a separate weather option. If people really want to fly with online ATC or insist on half-accurate METAR weather they’d probably be willing to put up with the inherent drawbacks of a METAR-based WX engine, and people who are happy with a dynamic weather system being somewhat less accurate but realistic and who don’t want to fly on VATSIM don’t have to put up with these drawbacks and hickups while they develop that.
Why wouldn’t it fly? Vatsim already relies on metar from another dynamic weather situation. I would say metars from a simulation (which is still based on the real world). So the difference is really the source. The quantity and value of the information recieved remains the same. All pilots will still be in the same weather environment, which is what ist most important. Real life weather doesn’t use METARs from earth from another universe to create its weather. So why should a simulator doing so be considered accurate. Again METAR should correctly read the weather and not the other way around.
Perhaps another technique for a weather engine is to base values and let the engine to its thing. Kind of like you only really need three colors to create any color of the entire spectrum. It’s all about the right mixture. What you really need are pressure, temperature, dewpoint and humidity. If you get these four value from real world sources chances are you will get wind, visiblity and clouds that come close enough to what is observed outside. So instead of relying on the METAR to read TCU to produce TCU, the weather engine will produce them by it’s own given the right mixture of these four values. Of course depending one how well the engine is able to interpret and translate these set of values. But then the developers has a better focus on what to work on and improvements can be made more efficiently. You won’t have abrupt changes anymore. Thunderstorms may still be in a lot of places, but at least you also get the visuals reference to them as well and will be displayed on the in-sim METAR.
If you then let it use 48 hour old data and anticipate the next 24 and 48 hours it can then smoothly transition over time.f
That is why I am suggesting that all online networks including vatsim, active sky, and whatever else is in the market use these metar data. Metar data still is metar data. The quantity of the infornation remains the same. It’s just the numbers that are slightly different. In fact the other simualtors could profit from a metar system based on a simulator weather as all the weather station can relay precise information and the maximum amount of data, while it’s real world counterpart may be limit by technology and equipment. Ironically the downside would be that METARs might be too accurate, because it knows exactly what the weather is doing and will do.
I see, so MSFS would in effect become the source of an alternate METAR system, that whatever other sim generating weather, or third party software used by another sim to generate weather, would use as the source of injecting weather.
It’s a noble idea, but the contractual issues are pretty substantial, in effect meteoblue would be providing data to a large number of companies for use in their software.
Agree 100%. I thought the thing you describe was the future of flightsimming when msfs got released. Now we want to get back to how it was before. That’s so sad. We need to think that the msfs weather is the real current weather and observe that. Not compare it with the real weather.
Touché on legal views. I am no legal expert but that may not be too much of an issue. I mean as soon as weather data is derived from the sim weather it probably isn’t meteoblue property anymore. Just like steel created from steel mill B isn’t property from steel mill A that created the steel to build steel mill B.
So it probably is property of MS/Asobo then. Vatsim and MS are partners for MSFS and all the popular 3rd party engines can utilize vatsim weather. I am not sure if all of them have a direct agreement with the source vatsim is currently using.
But as I said I am no legal expert. Just speculating here.
Why can’t we as users make METARS based of the weather then by observing the weather. We have the air preassure by pressing B, wind rate using shift+z addon, visibility we can see if it’s IFR or VFR. We can see if it’s overcast or clear sky.
!
. What is happening in real life will still happen in the simulator.
I hope they bring it back as it was. This is bad like it is now.