Will it Snow?

Now that snow is forecasted in the northern US, will it automatically snow in MSFS 2020 live weather? Or do you have to force it as snow?

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I’m sure I remember seeing a video from Luna’s World on Youtube where it did snow in Live weather. However the ground textures didn’t change. So kind of works… :slight_smile:

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Well it snows in denver at times depends on how much and how cold don’t mean it’s going to stick to the ground just cause it 's snowing outside.

That’s not my question. I’m curious if live weather will show snow when it’s snowing.

Assuming weather is working, then yes. That’s like asking “will it show rain when it rains?”

Pffft. You clearly don’t play MSFS.

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I haven’t had an issue with it yet, though very little testing. It was snowing here in Grand Forks and Fargo the other day and it showed up in the sim so yes it is working.

As far as I understand, there are 2 separate variables in play when it comes to snowing in MSFS:

  1. Precipitation turns from raindrops into snowflakes when the temperature is below 0 C
  2. Snow cover is greater than 0 m.

These 2 are independent from each other. #1 is automatic, well, sort of; #2, however, needs to be explicitly set by the weather engine based on specific observations or just some obscure conclusions made the the AI.

Shhhhhh. Not helpful.

Great. Thank you for the answer. I appreciate it.

ok seeing is believing that should help you lol

I’ve seen snow but not yet in this version… using real weather (I know you can force it manually).

KFCM today has been snowing since about 9am (because I work there)…and still as of 4pm local time the sim is totally VFR lol.

I’d love if the weather was actually live weather! But I think it’s anywhere from 4 to 8 hours old.

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THANK YOU. This is exactly why I posed the question and I appreciate the intelligent response. :wink:

In theory yes - when the live weather engine grabs the metar showing SN/BL SN/SN+ or similar, that should at least trigger precipitation which should be snow. I have personally seen live weather displaying snow within Canada (BC) on a few occasions recently. This won’t always be the case, such as when the live weather engine is only partially working or not at all on the current session.

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A couple days ago I “flew” the Caravan from Portland to Tillamook. It was a typical overcast day for this part of Oregon or Washington. In MSFS, it was a raging thunder and lightning storm. Fun flight, but nowhere close to the actual weather outside.

“Assuming” something works properly in FS 2020 has been a double-edged sword.

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I just tried two airports in Sweden. Both of them have a METAR. One says SN the other says SN+
However, no snow in the sim. LIVE weather shows precipitation in the image. But nothing comes out of the sky.
I hope they’ll fix this in the next patch.

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Same experience. Everyone made it sound like it just works but I’ve been in 3 areas where it’s snowing and saw nothing but the cold temps.

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Yep…been reading through that REX thread. The people defending the default sim just blow my mind. Yeah it can create some neat things but the LIVE WEATHER IS NOT LIVE. Unless by live, people mean 4-8 hours old…then yes, it’s “live.” ARGH! We literally had the biggest snow storm here in KMSP since 140 years ago the METARs in all the local areas were -SN and SN and sometimes +SN… I flew the sim 4 separate times with “LIVE” weather and only once was there a few drops of snow (mixed with rain). And when the snow did appear, I flew 10 miles west and the clouds went to few and it was sunny again LOL.

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yesterday morning ive bought REX WEATHER FORCE because in the sim didnt saw any snow or rain with LIVE WEATHER. two days ago it was snowing here in montreal, but no snow in msfs. so yesterday it was raining outside my home , i started msfs real weather, no rain at all. i started REX WEATHER oups it was rainng in the sim…the only thing is that on the ground there is still some snow here outside, but nothing on the ground with msfs…this morning it was snowing in SHEFFERVILLE CYKL quebec…i made the test …nothing in msfs…start rex weather there was light snow but nothing on the ground for msfs…so the problem is really msfs weather who is really not accurate…because REX utilize the metar and inject it in the sim so the weather in the sim suppose to work but it doesnt work…and why if we clic on PRESET WINTER STORM there is full of snow in the sim but if we clic on LIVE WEATHER no snow or rain at all in the sim. they really need to correct this, but when…

I haven’t personally experienced this yet. I flew out of Wabush (CYWK) a couple of days ago. It was snowing there in real life. IN-game ATIS was said heavy snow. It was -11C. It was raining in sim and no snow on the ground.