Weather, download current weather conditions.

[Scolagiaco]

So with hurricane Dean around, I thought it would be neat to go ahead and make a flight plan starting in jamaica. I chose the download real-time weather and go play in a hurricane. After checking with NOAA weather's radar, Jamaica should be getting the bad stuff now. When the sim started, the current conditions came out with winds calm, almost no over-cast, and no rain at all! This left me very dissappointed. I thought I would be flying under current weather conditions, or at least a major thunderstorm.... nothing at all :o( What gives?

[paulhigg]

I had a different experience. I got myself airborne in the Lear then went to map mode. Then I looked up the current Lat/Long and found the coord's for Dean, typed them in and voila, hurricane! It worked, I was blown all around and when I went above it I could see the eye. It was cool. I think it worked out because I made sure to download the weather a minute before I went to map mode. Try it again. I could NOT land at Manley. <grin> I thought, this is cool.

Paul

[wdscobie]

FS is getting the information from jeppesen. jeppesen is getting this information from real-world stations (that may or may not be from NOAA). when there is bad weather stations can go off-line for many reasons: damage; no telephone service remains to the station; person(s) staffing the station have left for her/his own safety; equipment removed so it is not damaged; other ...

when there is no station report you can see two results in FS -

* weather is FS default (15deg. C, 29.92/1013 pressure, calm, light clouds)
* weather is from the last report (ie, out of date)


below is the source I use to collect NOAA reports -

http://weather.noaa.gov/


go to 'international weather'; choose your country; choose reporting station.

in this case i see (at this time i post this) the following –

Kingston / Norman Manley, Jamaica -
ob: MKJP 192300Z E11099OO180KT 0KM BKN008 BKN010CB OVC080 24/24 Q0998

Time EDT (UTC),Temperature F (C),Dew Point F (C),Pressure Inches(hPa),Wind MPH,Weather
7 PM (23) Aug 19,75 (24),75 (24),29.47 (0998), ,
6 PM (22) Aug 19, , ,29.35 (0994), ,
5 PM (21) Aug 19, , ,29.29 (0992),SE 81,
4 PM (20) Aug 19,77 (25),71 (22),29.32 (0993),E 28,

Montego Bay / Sangster, Jamaica went off-line 18, Aug. ’07, at 10PM EDT with this report –
ob: MKJS 190200Z 04006KT 9999 VCTS SCT020 FEW022CB SCT220 29/26 Q1011

Time EDT (UTC),Temperature F (C),Dew Point F (C),Pressure Inches(hPa),Wind MPH,Weather
10 PM (2) Aug 18,84 (29),78 (26),29.85 (1011),NE 7,thunder in the vicinity
9 PM (1) Aug 18,84 (29),78 (26),29.85 (1011),NNE 7,
8 PM (0) Aug 18,84 (29),78 (26),29.85 (1011),NE 6

You posted your question at ~7pm EDT (USA), 19, aug. ‘07. I find FS weather to be ‘behind’ the real world by about one hour. So at 6PM (by the above charts) there were incomplete and missing reports for both Jamaican reporting stations.


--
source: weather tables from http://weather.noaa.gov/
--

[joejam2]

I went there and all i got was some wind. Dang it I really want to see this.

[Scolagiaco]

>I had a different experience. I got myself airborne in the
>Lear then went to map mode. Then I looked up the current
>Lat/Long and found the coord's for Dean, typed them in and
>voila, hurricane! It worked, I was blown all around and when
>I went above it I could see the eye. It was cool. I think it
>worked out because I made sure to download the weather a
>minute before I went to map mode. Try it again. I could NOT
>land at Manley. <grin> I thought, this is cool.
>
>Paul
>
>
OK OK "map mode" Can you state in order what you did so I can get this to work. I tryed it and no results.

[Scolagiaco]

OK OK I entered the coordinates in the map and I'm getting an error message. Lat is 17.5N and Long 77.8W It will accept the Latitude but not the Longitude. It keeps saying that the value of long must be between 0 and 180. Am I missing something?

[Scolagiaco]

I totally give up. I downloaded the weather, went to map mode and plugged in the coordinates and nothing. Clear sky, wind out of the west at 8 knots. SO PAUL, how did you get this or are you blowing wind up our butt?

[Garrovick]

I've never had any luck with real weather hurricanes.

FS2002 or FS2004.

Either the weather does not exist or the wind is unrealistic. Some of the time when I do get "hurricane" it's just gusty winds and rain, or nothing. Once flying in the area trying to catch the weather, I got like really poor and unrealistic wind speeds. One time it was normal and then like 300 knots. I was just cruising the area and wham, my poor little 172 flipped over on it's back and was driven into the ground.

My suggestion is to go to custom weather, get a recent weather report for hurricane wind speed and add the proper cloud levels, simply setting the weather up that way. I believe it can be set up by location too.

Just David, thinking out loud.

[JSkorna]

Hi,

You all need to be using Active Sky X. Users have been flying in hurricanes all week. Yes, high winds, the actual eye, lightning, the works. Plenty of screen shots in our forum at AVSIM and in the AVSIM Screen Shot Forum.

Thanks,
Jim

http://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-...-sigbanner.jpg
http://www.hifisim.com/

[joejam2]

Can anyone with Active Sky X post a screenshot of what the hurricane looks like from like 100,000 feet or higher? Does it really have the eye and everything.