Fog with SMPv4, RWC1.1 and XP11

[qdavweb]

Hi Sundog.

I love flying into airports that are reporting fog in the metar (using XP11 real weather). SMP4/RWC1.1can display this really well ( I use HD cloud puffs). Sometimes not so well, although I can see it is trying. Sometimes XP11 real weather recognises FOGGY condition and when it does it adds a stratus layer starting roughly at ground level. I believe it does this when it also sees a VVxxx in the metar. Accordingly, SMP tries to add a stratus layer but it often looks quite sparse as if most of the clouds are cut off by the ground and we only see the tops of them. If I then adjust the stratus layer base in XP to be 1 - 2 thousand feet higher than ground level, we see a pretty solid stratus representation.

Can you confirm this is what is happening and of there are plans to improve this ? (Other than switching to stratiform representation which doesnt seem to be able to show localised stratus).

A couple of pics attached to show this, and the associated metar.rwx.  Try at airport LETL - (LETL 230530Z AUTO 34004KT 0350 R36/0800U FG FG VV003 05/04 Q1036)

 

METAR.rwx

[sundog]

First I've seen of this particular issue, but you're right that the fog effect had been tuned for the particle overcast choices and not the new HD puffs. I've changed the code to push these clouds up more in our next release in this case, which should make them look more dense.