Ok, let’s not start an argument. Besides, I agree with you that the clouds need some fixing. It’s just this auto-bump feature that sometimes gets on my nerves making us think there are new replies to the threads when there are none. 
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Agreed here, Ive just done my meteorology ATPL exams and was excited to see some 57000ft Tropopauses in western africa, of course then I flew there having checked Meteoblue cloud height maps and seen the CBs are climbing to 41000ft. Of course when I get there in the sim, all I find is a cloud layer of cumulus up to about 12000ft. Disappointing to say the least! Especially with the addition of all these weather radars now coming on more and more addon aircraft. I wanna have stuff to worry about!
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How is this issue in MSFS 2024?
I was doing a flight in Japan and multiple METAR reported TSRA, and Meteoblue would no doubt be modelling decent convection, but the clouds were not matching any realistic excitement in the sim.
it’s almost as if the sim has a mistaken 0.5 somewhere in the code that’s halving the amount and size of cloud…
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My honest opinion is that normal cumulus-clouds have the size (vertically and horizontally) as a CB. And this is one of the worst setbacks of this sim at the moment.
I’m currently on an IFR flight from Prague to Memmingen, Germany. Cruising at FL200
I’m just surfing through cloud after cloud and they seem to be peaking up to FL300.
I had to cross-ref using another WX-source for cloud tops, and Windy is giving a very very low cloud top across central Europe with tops bearly reaching 6-7000 feet.
And this could be a one-off, but this is my general experience with 2024 (and it hasn’t change since 2020 either). The clouds are visually way too dramatic in terms of size. And the icing seems to be non-existent too. In maybe 1 out of 10 flights I get a tendency of some ice crystals on the windshield, even though I’m flying through Cumulus-clouds depepticing heavy percipitation and minus 7 degrees celcius. Turbulence is also very very random in the clouds. No relation to size or color in any way.
2024 is an amazing simulator with a lot of amazing features, but please please put som attention into the weather-engine. It kills the entire fun of flying at this moment.
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I concur on the size of the clouds. They are just way oversized right now and you lose that perception of height even if you are at 30k feet.
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Weather needs a full Sim Update dedicated just to it
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ISSUE DESCRIPTION
Description of the issue: Based on the feedback discussed today on the Developer Live Stream, it has become clear that the issue of weather isn’t getting the attention that many of us “simmers looking for maximum realism” are looking for.
Weather: Live weather does not depict towering clouds or storm clouds at high altitudes.
**
Examples**
FREQUENCY OF ISSUE
Every flight. Its a core simulator issue.
REPRODUCTION STEPS
Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:
- Locate any thunderstorm, or area of convective weather. There are many areas to find them Aviationweather.com being one.
Here for example is a Convective SIGMET where there are reported clouds up to FL450
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Fly in this area up to the flight levels. The weather report shows towering clouds and convective activity up to FL450
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There are no clouds or towering clouds above FL180 in most cases. Just wisp of clods. No clear structures being shown.
YOUR SETTINGS
Flew in this area KSTL where there are reported tops up to FL450.
Same area. The no visible cloud structures after FL200. Just fog the entire way up.
Broke out of the fog at 36000
A 360 degree view of the area shows no structures or cloud formations.
Even with the Preset. I can’t replicate an Anvil cloud, a towering cloud. I get these weird spikes in the cloud formations. It’s simply impossible to make an anvil cloud that towers to high flight levels.
Examples and research.
Here are examples.
Images from a 767 Captain showing and avoiding thunderstorm clouds Shot From the Cockpit of a Boeing 767, Santiago Borja’s Photographs Capture Stunning Storms Around the World — Colossal
Video from cockpits
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Thanks for the highly detailed post. You hit the nail on the head. Hopefully this topic from 2020 gets the votes it needs to become visible to the Devs.
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You’re not wrong overall, but you’re comparing pictures taken of isolated thunderstorms and those taken from outside of thunderstorm complexes with being on top of/within a well-developed mesoscale convective system. The (incorrect) lower height of the clouds in the sim notwithstanding, you’re probably not going to see a ton of well-defined structure in that position, mostly just surrounded by the anvil shield(s) that are all conglomerated from the individual cells and lines underneath at that point. Maybe you’ll see an overshooting top of a dominant cell here and there if you’re lucky.
But unless you’re on the periphery of a system like that (and possibly underneath the shield), or observing it earlier in the development phase, it’s most likely not going to be the beautiful updrafts surrounded by clear slots. By the time that MCS reached the STL area around 03z yesterday, it was a giant blob of no-go.
To get an idea of this, instead of correlating the visual expectation at a certain position with radar (which only detects precipitation), use a satellite picture. This will reveal the lateral extent of the “shield” and even the verticality to a degree.
I understand that completely. What I am concerned more with is that there are several depictions aspect that are missing taking just an isolated thunderstorm. It’s currently not possible to create it in live weather or custom weather, so I go back to this system and the response is inadequate to what a flight simulator should be simulating.
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My 2 yen on Live weather and other weather aspects @
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I agree, this is a must fix
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As a real-world commercial pilot, convective weather is one of the most challenging and hazardous threats we deal with—often on a daily basis here in the United States. That’s why it’s frustrating to see users on VATSIM casually flying straight through supercells with tops in the mid-50,000+ foot range. It breaks immersion and really diminishes the “simulation” aspect of the experience.
From a development standpoint, there’s a real opportunity to improve both the depiction and the impact of convective weather. Updrafts and downdrafts have been extensively studied, and that data could be modeled or reasonably approximated based on storm intensity. With the introduction of weather avoidance tools in SU5, there’s now a foundation to simulate meaningful consequences for flying into these systems—encouraging more realistic decision-making (which is largely what flying and being a pilot is).
Ideally, aircraft that penetrate strong convective cores should experience significant performance impacts, forcing users to respect weather rather than treat it as visual scenery. As a longer-term idea, it would be great to see features like hail cores or even some level of aircraft damage modeling tied to severe weather—similar to how icing currently affects flight models.
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If we could get more granular with NWP model grids in say habitable areas then I don’t see why it isn’t totally unreasonable. Right now it does fairly good sort of sticking bad wx in roughly the area it’s in, but surely we can tighten up depiction a bit more at the cost of data and its associated costs.
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Agree with what the Goose says. All of this basically points to the development team needs to rethink the weather strategy, and conversation around it. I am an instrument rated pilot and I can tell you that I respect TCU clouds even at the mid low 6000-12000 range. The air around them makes you respect them. We currently do not have this in the simulator. Add to that the weather depictions to visually avoid them.
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In theory, yes, in practice I think it’s more complex.
" Parameterisation: Representing Small-Scale Processes
Not all atmospheric processes can be represented explicitly at the scale of the grid. Some phenomena, such as small-scale turbulence or individual thunderstorms, occur at scales smaller than the grid spacing. To account for these processes, models use what is known as parameterisation. This involves simplified mathematical descriptions that approximate the average effect of small-scale processes on the larger-scale atmosphere. Parameterisation is one of the most complex and challenging aspects of model development, and differences in these schemes partly explain why different models can produce slightly different forecasts."
The Comprehensive Guide on Weather Models: Understanding NWP Systems - meteoblue
Also:
- The Comprehensive Guide to Weather Models: Inside Today’s Forecasting Systems - meteoblue
- Forecast model comparison - which one is the most reliable? | meteoblue Community
Weather has a processing budget just like all the other subsystems running under the hood, so it’s all a matter of balance. Complicated further by the different platforms and capabilities which also have a variety of users from casual to serious simmers. The virtual skies are open to all.
Still, who knows what could be approximated with a bit of “game magic” to make it a little more immersive but still performant, such as also suggested here: Thermals, Up & Downdrafts - More Realism Updates - #226 by SimSoaringClub
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I haven’t read everything, but come on guys !!
We all know by now,Asobo/ Microsoft is not interested in really good live weather or even good weather models at all.
Why have they made it worse in the last years? To make things run on XBox and nowadays to run also on PS5. And as long as they aren’t open the weather engine to 3rd party developer, nothing will become better. End of story.
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Eh, we’re kind of finding out that they don’t seem to understand the problem. Maybe that indicates a lack of interest. But I think it shows more that the feedback pipeline is insufficient, intentional or not.
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I’m finally noticing a lot more engagement from all of us weather simmers… I’m happy about this and I hope Asobo listens to this great crowd that’s growing… let’s keep these weather posts alive with the hope that something can unlock itself in the near future…
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I mean, they did it to themselves by demonstrating they don’t understand the issue and can’t explain the “why,” which just allows these threads to continue to spiral. Another customer-service blind spot, or own goal as I like to say.
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