Those are all great shots and good examples of some towering cumulus and pretty mean storms. However I am convinced that these depictions are part of a very large weather “system” such as a front, or large line of thunderstorms that stretch hundreds of miles.
Tall cumulonimbus thunderstorm clouds can be more isolated in nature, however in real life they are still very tall and can contain quite a punch as far as severity of weather, i.e. high winds, gusts, turbulence (up/down drafts), and of course rain and lightning. It seems that the sim CAN depict isolated thunderstorms, but the clouds are usually only from a few hundred to maybe a thousand feet tall.
And the “calm before the storm” cumulus and towering cumulonimbus clouds (that aren’t storms quite yet but “growing” are not to be seen in the sim either…
I remember seeing this topic and kept thinking that things were going slowly towards the right direction. But, here we are today after SU7 update. The whole live weather system is completely broken and a mess! There is no cloud variety whatsoever. Even stratus cloud layers are completely gone. Tested flying around the world and I could only spot cumulus in different quantities (BUT they don’t look right at all, they reach the ground due to wrong cloud base altitudes, they are very transparent and anemic, the cloud noise is a complete mess etc). So where do we go from here on?
Asobo should really try and test the weather/cloud formation engine, while seeing and comparing the generated weather to the ones that exist in real life. I mean, the sim should be able to generate in live weather mode : Cumulus clouds of every subcategory and possible size, believable Stratus clouds with their own variety of densities as they range from stratocumulus to cirrostratus, cirrus clouds with different shader patterns since they are extremely variable and depend on layer humidity and wind speeds.!
A list of most well know cloud formations. Even an 75-80 % of these in the sim would make it complete weatherwise. With an intelligent yet believable visibility system, it would be a dreamlike experience for every simmer. NOAA link with details on every cloud formation : NWS JetStream - NWS Cloud Chart
So, in the links below is what we currently have in the sim. It’s obvious that Live Weather is broken and can’t even generate half the variety we had before the last update. It is the same cumulus copy and paste all over again, just different density and clusters. I haven’t found completely overcast skies yet, since stratus clouds are non-existent. That is definitely not how the sky /weather system works.
Links to forum threads covering the current serious weather engine issues :
Agree with you buddy!, SU7 completely broke the weather. I would have never expected this tbh, but at this point I miss the live weather we had last week!.
Hope for a quick fix and for the dev’s stated “improved” weather.
Live weather completely broken ! ho man if we need to wait for update in february it s going to be long !! I can’t believe they don’t know and they didn’t have hotfix or something !!
NOW we have way too many cumulus clouds - in fact that is about ALL we have! With exception of some kind of transparent “soup” clouds all I ever see are these ugly cumulus type of “puffs” everywhere. We need more than one or two cloud types.
I’m willing to bet that these “clouds” are fillers to make it seem like the METAR is matching the live weather maybe? Example - the live weather WITHOUT the metar WAS using prediction, and this “old” way may have shown partly cloudy or even clear conditions, while the real METAR was saying it should be overcast. So now with the sim using the METAR, instead of the simulator showing a solid overcast “ring” around the METAR area (circumference) that might look silly, so the developers are using these ugly huge cumulus PUFFS all around to kind of make it SEEM like it is overcast but if you look closer there are holes to the blue sky everywhere.
It’s really just a mess right now and the clouds are straight up UGLY and there is no longer any sense of going through the clouds they are just wispy/transparent puffs. We no longer have upper level clouds that used to be beautiful (overcast or broken, or few), the sim can no longer make a true OVERCAST layer, when climbing up through the layer you can see the ground almost all the way up through where the top of the cloud deck is then all the sudden you won’t see ground.
I also used to see (this is like pre SU3 timeframe) beautiful god rays going to the ground from the sunlight poking through the clouds to the ground and sometimes from upper layers to lower layers in between. This is GONE from what I can tell. I have about 1,200 hours in the sim.
I wish we could just have an on/off switch - one for using the newer “METAR system” and then the other setting to JUST use the “old” prediction only system. And oh, bring back the “old” clouds we had pre SU3 (before changes had to be made for XBOX?)
I am not sure if I feel more positive after reading this old post (the weather was broken in the past then fixed) or being more pessimistic since it’s been nearly two months since su7 and also that this issue might happen again in the future. This post started with the disappearance of cumulus like clouds…now we just have those ones I can’t emphasize enough on how the next future updates should be optional!! please Asobo
you should change the title of the topic and update this post for the current issues (just cumulus, cotton like clouds and unreal cumulonimbus) so the moderators will log it and also to get more votes.
Agree on/off switch for METAR. Or get rid of them completely and revert back pre su7. I can’t see them make METAR fit prediction. It’s two completely different things. Let meteoblue make the prediction more accurate in the future i can wait for that. I think Asobo has other issues to fix than making METAR fit prediction. Besides if METAR would be so good to use in a global weather calculation why does not meteoblue use them in the calculations they doing. Maybe they already take those in the calculations but can’t make them fit always in the global calculations either and then exclude them from the calculations if they are complete different. Besides they are old, weather always changing and that change does meteoblue calculate globally. I know not always accurate but it’s a believable representation of the weather globally.
Asobo should focus making ATIS report correct things about the weather that is happening in the sim instead not be calculators to match those METAR that is mostly impossible if they differ. If they match they not need to do any calculations at all but how often does they match 100%? Not many because the weather always changing. The METAR changing the amazing weather we had in the first spot were we start a flight, At the airport. How good of a first impression is that? I can’t motivate myself to fly with that when i know what i had before.
The way it reads the current BETA will become the live version, no change in version number or release notes. Looks like the issues we face now will stay with us until SU8
I can’t emphasize enough on how the next future updates should be optional!! please Asobo