Since Sim Update 7, I don’t see live weather, lightning or thunder.
Does it just happen to me or someone else?
There are bazillion issues with Live Weather now, as you can surely see in the forum as well.
However, if I don’t miss something post SU7 it’s the nonsensical lightning. I’m sure there are more sinners who were more than fed up with the way the flash and thunder was implemented.
13 Likes
So after 16 months or so, we’ve gone from lightning everywhere (even with clear skies) to no lightning at all?
This is what happens when you prioritize arcade races over core sim features (ie. weather).
37 Likes
If only Microsoft/Asobo had a partner that deals with meteorology. Maybe they could ask them how to implement live weather and how to do the Weather UI to implement weather presets.
I guess I’m asking too much.
7 Likes
I agree that before SU7, thunder and lightning were exaggeratedly annoying, but I think, in balance is virtue. Nor does it make sense to suppress them altoged.
Hopefully in the next update it will implement lightning and thunder, in a logical way in areas with storms.
3 Likes
I saw lightning on one of my flights.
I think it happened when the clouds are building up into rain/storm.
So, it’s still there and only appears in the right moment.
There has been an issue where there always was lightning so i think they fixed this. Have you tried more places with lighting in real life?
Only flight in real time and meteorology. I have tested on all continents. In stormy and rainy places, and I haven’t seen any lightning, nor have I heard any thunder at all.
5 Likes
Hmm… Maybe they removed it until they fix it because it used to be there even on sunny days.
1 Like
Steam Version, haven’t tried developer mode - though I think it’s on all platforms/versions.
I canvassed some opinion in the general chat thread a month ago, I’ve subsequently tested areas with thunderstorms shown in METAR and Lightningmap.org and have yet to find one in Live Weather setting.
So I appreciate there are loads of threads reporting issues with the weather engine, I feel it’s worth highlighting that live thunderstorms are not appearing in SU7 as a bug.
2 Likes
I’m using the Steam version and saw a thunderstorm with live weather just this morning. I think they may just have dialled down the occurrence due to the bug where there was lighting everywhere. They are just harder to find, just like real life.
Thunder and lightning are alive and well in Australia today using real weather. Airport YCSV. Typical afternoon thunderstorm common in this part of the world in Summer.
5 Likes
Wow and you’ve got pictures too! Congratulations.
Maybe Northern Hemisphere storms aren’t good enough for the sim! On a serious note, I do wonder whether smaller NH storms in the Winter means the system isn’t picking them up, you may have hit on something there. They’re definitely harder to find than in real life, I’ve spent my adult life hunting mostly disappointing storms in Europe.
I’ve changed the name of the thread to reflect developments. Happy Christmas and your name sounds like the sort of band I’d love to watch.
For fear of seeming like a broken record…Live thunderstorms with lightning are still as rare as hens’ teeth. Being a weather nut, I tend to gravitate towards forecast and current big weather events. One community member managed to find some live lightning in Australia which inspired me to go up and stalk some storms in the Meteoblue forecast and some showing up live on lightningmaps.org.
My first finding is the issue isn’t with the forecast from which MSFS generates live weather, it seems pretty good at predicting storms.
There were no further findings, in the last week I’ve been through areas of high Cape on the Garmins, in the forecast and in reality in South America. Storm clouds, a little turbulance, rain (no hail sadly) but no lightning found at night. Frankly if it’s possible to get from one end of Venezuela to another at night and not see any lightning either nearby or in the distance, then there is an issue. It being thunderstorm capital of Earth.
I note there was nothing noted in the changelog for the urgent fix to live weather (which was really appreciated thank you MS/Asobo), does this issue remain on the “to do” list, there are ongoing weather improvements on there but I can’t see Lightning/Thunder increase in there?
I was going to take a screenshot of there being no lightning then realised that it was a bit of a pointless thing for me to do; look some clouds!
Once again, the potentiometer swings from one extreme to the other; “lightning everywhere!” to “lightning almost nowhere!”. This seems to be a typical pattern Asobo is dealing with on multiple fronts (no pun intended 
). It also went from no towering cumulus/cumulonimbus almost anywhere to cumulonimbus EVERYWHERE and attacking the ground!
The good news is that in nature, thunderstorms aren’t prevalent right now in the northern hemisphere. But they should be in the Southern Hemisphere as we just passed mid-Summer down there. Something changed around SU3 where we lost many of the cloud types and opacity. Hopefully it can be fixed soon.
Asobo will get this straightened out sooner or later. Best we can do is document the issues like we are!
I haven’t seen or heard thunder storms in months. To be fair, I haven’t gone out of my way looking for them. They kind of came looking for us before. 
Flew through thunderstorms in Texas today, no lightning or thunder in sim? 1/31/2022
Let sleeping dogs lie …
I didnt’see any lighnings or hear any thunders for weeks (or months), and I am happy about it. Before SU7 it was just ridiculous, lightnings and thunders everywhere, even in clear sky.
For a realistic thunderstorm simulation it takes more than just randomly adding lighting and thunder. The clouds have to match too. But as long as the weather model does not properly implement Cumulus or Cumulonimbus, I think having (almost) no lightnings at all is the better way to go.
3 Likes
As it turns into Spring and Summer in the NH, it will become a problem again. Mark my word.
3 Likes