WEATHER MAP AND CURRENT

[kiwi971]

Hello,



I noticed what seems to be an inconsistency between the weather map and the weather depiction at my aircraft position.



As you can see from the attached screenshots, the map clearly shows my aircraft located within a cloudy area, but the Current Conditions at Aircraft Position window reports “Clear” with no cloud layers and no precipitation.



Could you please explain why there is this difference? Is the map displaying forecast/satellite imagery while the aircraft conditions come from a different weather source or interpolation method?



I would like to understand whether this is expected behavior or if it indicates a problem with the weather depiction.



Thank you very much.

 

[Daveo]

The weather map visualization in Active Sky is not intended to be highly accurate for a given local area, as it uses low resolution sprites to represent general weather conditions in each segment of the map. When coupled with the preset weather control system, which is a global application of weather, some discrepancies are expected. For example, since a cloud map sprite may show "broken" conditions over airport KABC, because KABC is near the center, and the sprite size is minimum X, it may cover other areas adjacent to this, even though the weather in such adjacent areas may be clear/few (due to other stations showing different weather) and you will be experiencing clear/few if you are outside the direct local area of KABC. In other words, the resolution is not fine enough to specifically show the exact conditions at your position, on the map.

The weather map is thus more of a summary of expected conditions over a route and not to be used for specific comparison of weather conditions during your flight.

For accurate conditions of weather along your flight, down to the specific position you are at, you should use the conditions page, with no ICAO ID code entered, which shows "Current Interpolated Weather". This should always show the actual conditions, and give specific information as to why the conditions are they way they are (interpolation sources, etc.). This detail is in the METAR text area (below the standard METAR encoded text).