Resolved Metar Correct - But Depiction completely wrong

[damian]

Thanks, I can see that shift in the video, and that's definitely not expected (nor reproduceable so far on my end). I don't see any associated instant theme reload triggering or any other explanation. It seems like the weather is being controlled outside of ASFS somehow. Have you ever had weather presets pro installed? We've heard of similar strangeness with this add-on running that can reset presets automatically, perhaps this might explain things? In any case I am investigating your log/details here. Thank you.

 

[pdeswardt]

Thanks, I can see that shift in the video, and that's definitely not expected (nor reproduceable so far on my end). I don't see any associated instant theme reload triggering or any other explanation. It seems like the weather is being controlled outside of ASFS somehow. Have you ever had weather presets pro installed? We've heard of similar strangeness with this add-on running that can reset presets automatically, perhaps this might explain things? In any case I am investigating your log/details here. Thank you.

No I have no other weather add-ons except AS.

I doubt this is airport/plane specific, but I will do a few more flights to other airports using other aircraft and see what happens after I shut down, and report back.

 

[Henrique Santos]

Hello to all!
Just a quick feedback of my experience with latest Beta (but no photo at this time).
I live near LPPR, and the skies were clear, and MSFS replicated this almost correctly (except, too clear). As soon as ASFS took control, dark sky, with lots of clouds.
Yesterday, almost the same thing, so depiction not very good...
But I'm confident.

 

[mmcmah]

Hello to all!
Just a quick feedback of my experience with latest Beta (but no photo at this time).
I live near LPPR, and the skies were clear, and MSFS replicated this almost correctly (except, too clear). As soon as ASFS took control, dark sky, with lots of clouds.
Yesterday, almost the same thing, so depiction not very good...
But I'm confident.

Would be good to see pictures comparing the conditions in MSFS and ASFS, along with the METARs that they are depicting. The Conditions window in ASFS is also helpful when in Active Preeet mode.

 

[damian]

Hello to all!
Just a quick feedback of my experience with latest Beta (but no photo at this time).
I live near LPPR, and the skies were clear, and MSFS replicated this almost correctly (except, too clear). As soon as ASFS took control, dark sky, with lots of clouds.
Yesterday, almost the same thing, so depiction not very good...
But I'm confident.

I can't investigate anything without documentation/example of discrepancy. Please make sure to include this when posting issues. For discrepancies, we need conditions page (no code entered) along with comparison of data showing verified discrepancy/problem (i.e. wrong depiction, wrong data, etc). Thank you.

 

[BU830]

Hi

Just spawned into EGCC on the latest Beta 8906

This is what ASFS shows me ( Live Weather mode on ) . Apart from the blinding Sun glare which is also unrealistic - i see no rain, and no overcast.


This is MSFS ( passive mode ) - this looks a lot more like the reported current conditions :



Metar :

EGCC 221550Z AUTO 27010KT 8000 -RA BKN005/// OVC009/// //////CB 14/13 Q1004 TEMPO 5000 RA

Please can this be fixed ASAP, or if not, I'd be happy to accept a refund because this product does not work as advertised at the moment. It has moments of goodness, but more often than not it completely fails to impress.

Thanks

Same in EDDL actually. Live Weather shows rain as IRL. And acitve sky shows no precipitation
METAR: EDDL 250650Z AUTO 19008KT 5000 -DZ BR BKN006 14/13 Q1016 RERA NOSIG

 

[Bloodhound]

Weather depiction is completely wrong for me as well, using beta 8908 version.
I live close to Stockholm Bromma airport, and you can find below a picture took from my window, one with Active sky weather and one with MSFS weather, flying above my building.

 

[Stromantys]

same thing for me.... waiting for repair..... time 10:00 AM UTC Airport LICJ

weather AS




weather MSFS



METAR

 

[PHX_ramper]

METAR

View attachment 8273

seems like in you rlog its showing the correct weather

Could not collect SimConnectionLog: Il processo non può accedere al file 'C:\Users\Giancarlo\AppData\Roaming\HiFi\AS_FS\AddonFolder\AS_FS_SimConnectionLog.txt' perché è in uso da un altro processo.
activeflightplanwx.txt last modified at: 5/27/2024 12:09:55 PM
DepartureMETAR=LEIB 270930Z 08006KT 060V140 9999 FEW018 24/17 Q1016 NOSIG
DestinationMETAR=LICJ 270950Z 03008KT CAVOK 22/16 Q1019

so the question would be why is it not injecting correctly.

 

[mmcmah]

same thing for me.... waiting for repair..... time 10:00 AM UTC Airport LICJ

weather AS


View attachment 8270

weather MSFS

View attachment 8271

METAR

View attachment 8273

I get the same depiction as you, and as @PHX_ramper says, the question is why the depiction seems to wrong. I tried turning off the option to Add clouds to CAVOK/NSC/NCD/Unspecified, but it made no difference. The depiction remained heavily cloudy.

I then looked at the Conditions page for the airport as well as the current position. Here they are in case they are helpful to Damian in explaining what is going on and why the Current position depiction is so different from the LICJ depiction. By the way, these are while the airplane is off and at the ramp at LCJ:

LICJ:
LICJ 270950Z 03008KT CAVOK 22/16 Q1019

Decoded textual weather for LICJ

Wind: 030 at 8 knots
Visibility: 10+ SM (9999+ m)
Clouds: Scattered at 5404 feet


Temperature: 22.0C
Precipitation: None reported
Altimeter: 1019 mb (30.09 inches)

This station includes complete surface weather information, interpolation disabled.



Original metar of the stations:
LICJ 270950Z 03008KT CAVOK 22/16 Q1019




Current Position:
@POS 270950Z 03008KT 9999 SCT054 SCT406 22/16 Q1019 RMK AS DEPICTED
(Cloned by: LICJ, closest weather station when the aircraft was on the ground)


SCT054 extends to:16207 feet (Cloud type:CU, Turbulence:Heavy, Icing:None, Shear:Gradual, Cloud shape:Flat). Previous cloud: None, next cloud: SCT406 (Synthed CAVOK)
SCT406 extends to:41977 feet (Cloud type:CI, Turbulence:None, Icing:None, Shear:Gradual, Cloud shape:Flat). Previous cloud: SCT054, next cloud: OVC422 (Synthed Cirrus)
OVC422 extends to:45830 feet (Cloud type:CI, Turbulence:None, Icing:None, Shear:Gradual, Cloud shape:Flat). Previous cloud: SCT406, next cloud: None (Synthed Cirrus)




This station has complete visibility information. No interpolation needed
Altimeter interpolation based on:
-LICF 115nm NE (Q1018), LICB 104nm SE (Q1019), LICJ 1nm SW (Q1019), LIRE 209nm NW (Q1018)
This station has complete Precipitation information. No interpolation needed

NOTE: Clouds, visibility and precipitation reported are the ones from the active cell weather

 

[mmcmah]

I also should note a strange issue with the time setting in the historical weather date/time selection window. When I was trying to replicate the conditions posted farther up, I selected a time a little later than the shown METAR timestamp. However, I ended up having to set a time BEFORE the timestamp in order to get the right METAR. Here are a couple of screenshots.

On a related note, I've asked before, but can we please get an apply button/text to actually initiate the download of historical weather? Between changing the date, the minutes and the hours, it can be a challenge to get the right historical date dialed in before it starts the download process.

Time set to 0910Z:

 

[mmcmah]

METAR from 0950Z:

 

[pdeswardt]

Another example : I see no rain in live mode in ASFS ( and yes i'm standing under an overcast(ish) layer of cloud )

Second screenshot - Passive -so MSFS weather is correct :

 

[PHX_ramper]

I found out why.. look at the taf @1430 it's reporting BKN003 only becoming rain.

 

[pdeswardt]

So are you saying msfs was wrong in this instance?

 

[PHX_ramper]

So are you saying msfs was wrong in this instance?

In your discussion about ASFS (Aeronautical Services Flight Simulator) and MSFS (Microsoft Flight Simulator), it appears there's a key distinction between METAR and TAF reports that can explain the observed differences.

METAR (Meteorological Aerodrome Report):

• A METAR is an aviation routine weather report that provides an observation of the current weather at an airport. This includes details such as wind speed and direction, visibility, temperature, dew point, and cloud cover. METARs are typically updated every hour and are used by pilots to understand current weather conditions at specific locations (DTN) (Pilot Institute).

TAF (Terminal Aerodrome Forecast):

• In contrast, a TAF is a forecast of the weather conditions expected at an airport, typically covering a 24 to 30-hour period. TAFs are issued four times a day and are updated as necessary to reflect significant changes. They include predictions for wind, visibility, significant weather phenomena, and sky conditions for the forecast period (Pilot Institute) (Flight Crew Guide).

Given this, if ASFS is using TAF data, it would provide forecasted weather conditions, which can be different from the actual current conditions reported by METAR data, which is what MSFS uses. Therefore, both ASFS and MSFS can be correct in their reports—one reflects forecasted conditions (TAF) while the other reflects observed current conditions (METAR).

To address your specific situation, ensure you upload your log as requested by @damian to provide more detailed insights. This can help identify any discrepancies or provide further clarity on the specific data sources each simulator is using at given times.

 

[damian]

I am a bit overwhelmed tracking different or unrelated items in this thread but will try and sort through a few things:

1) CAVOK does not mean NO CLOUDS. It means no high-coverage clouds under 5000ft (or MSA) and 10K+ meter visibility. The option to add clouds with CAVOK/NSC/NCD does work from all indication, and we have no reports of issues. Do realize you have to refresh or wait for a new update to see changes after making this option change. If there is a confirmed issue here, after establishing refresh/update, please confirm and we will investigate (repro steps appreciated).

Be advised that we are not fully done implementing advanced GRIB data cloud + METAR cloud hybridization. The accuracy of clouds despite METAR conditions will be improving as we finish implementation here. Currently there can be some accuracy issues as our deterministic forumulas for cloud coverage when CAVOK are limited in certain ways.

2) MSFS live weather is not always right, in fact, in some regions, it's very commonly wrong. It's getting better but is not perfect. It should never be assumed what is shown in MSFS live weather is "correct". Always compare with actual other sources. Your "out the window view" is helpful and interesting but it is not always feasible to establish such accuracy to visually observed conditions if the data says otherwise. ASFS is data driven.

3) TAF is not used for surface conditions synthesis in ASFS UNLESS the METAR has gone stale (over 1 hour old) then we inject TAF data to supplement the METAR to provide dynamics, but a new METAR will override this.

4) It, realistically, only rains under clouds in MSFS. You should not expect rain when you are under a clear area. So even if a METAR says RA, unless the clouds are OVC, it's not going to be raining everywhere. If you experience no rain while under a cloud with rain shown in conditions, then that is an issue, please show this and we'll investigate.

Finally, it's probably best to use new threads at this point as these longer threads are getting too hard to follow and most of the issues are unrelated or different from each other significantly.

Thanks!

 

[damian]

We have resolved a few issues that are likely related to issues experienced recently, to be posted in the next build. We will be closing this thread to better organize things. If anything remains or is newly problematic in new build, please post a new thread for each specific issue. Thank you.

 

[Yardbird]

Hi @damian ,

here the ovc layer is missing as well. Any ideas why?
Edit: As I just read the Metar I noticed that the clouds in the sim are completly off compared to the metar.

Best regards,
Felix