Strange towering clouds

[Jakob Ludwig]

Hi there,

XP 11.30r3 + SMP 4.7.3 + RWC 1.1 + FSGRW build 404

METAR from FSGRW for EDHK 141148Z 31017G27KT 9999 SCT060 02/M04 Q1003 

FSGRW visibility at 39km, clouds scattered 6000ft and 10867 ft

My questions are:

1. What are these towering clouds? There are no TCU or CB reported and they look kind of strange I must say. Saw them on different places the last days and couldn't get a clue why they appear and why they look like this.

2. Why do the scattered clouds change in appearance, if the stratus/overcast selection is switched from HD cloud puffs to dense particles? This isn't a stratus/overcast layer for me. 

Botch in sim pics were made in the same session. Once with status/overcast set to HD Cloud puffs and and once with "dense particles"

Cheers 

Jakob

[Cameron]

It's towering cumulus and can only appear when FSGRW is instructing it to in the SkyMaxx Pro specific integration.

[sundog]

The US government shutdown has caused some NOAA data feeds to not function properly, so that might be why the data FSGRW is retrieving doesn't match current real-world conditions. If the US starts functioning again, that part of the problem should clear itself up.

[Jakob Ludwig]

2 hours ago, Cameron said:

It's towering cumulus and can only appear when FSGRW is instructing it to in the SkyMaxx Pro specific integration.

Oh that's some kind of cloud I've never seen before. Guess those appear more often in the US, caused by different topography and atmospheric conditions. Reason why tornados are not present in central Europe. Different airflows and topography.

Are you guys able to generate different style of towering cumulonimbus clouds in a future update? I really like a lot about Skymaxx, but those look a bit uncommon for me. I would like to see wider CU/TCU with more body. That would be awesome.

And hope the servers are back in sync soon. Can't believe Trump actions even reach to us flight simmers. 

[TimeTraveler]

I’m sure I’ve seen those clouds while flying in rl. Or pretty much close to it

[kentwerickson]

I've also been meaning to ask about the towering clouds; kind of remind me of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man . And when a bunch of them appear together they don't look to me very natural at all (but just my opinion). I'm no meteorologist, but my hunch is that these formations are more common in Florida, and maybe parts of the Southwest, but pretty rare elsewhere in the U.S. Seems to be maybe more of a tropical phenomenon.

[sundog]

13 hours ago, kentwerickson said:

I've also been meaning to ask about the towering clouds; kind of remind me of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man . And when a bunch of them appear together they don't look to me very natural at all (but just my opinion). I'm no meteorologist, but my hunch is that these formations are more common in Florida, and maybe parts of the Southwest, but pretty rare elsewhere in the U.S. Seems to be maybe more of a tropical phenomenon.

Yes, I think they are mostly a tropical or sub-tropical thing. They're not unusual at all here in central Florida, but we get enough complaints from people in more northern latitudes that we probably should suppress them if you're flying above 40 degrees latitude or so.

[kentwerickson]

13 hours ago, sundog said:

Yes, I think they are mostly a tropical or sub-tropical thing. They're not unusual at all here in central Florida, but we get enough complaints from people in more northern latitudes that we probably should suppress them if you're flying above 40 degrees latitude or so.

I personally like seeing towering thunderheads, but my experience is that they are more commonly much broader (and darker), even in sub-tropical climates. But again I could be wrong about this.

[sundog]

9 hours ago, kentwerickson said:

I personally like seeing towering thunderheads, but my experience is that they are more commonly much broader (and darker), even in sub-tropical climates. But again I could be wrong about this.

We treat thunderheads (cumulonimbus) separately from towering cumulus, and have different representations for each. I think it's the towering cumulus that tend to be tall and skinny in our representation, and those are the ones that we're going to suppress above 40 degrees North (unless an external injector such as FSGRW explicitly tells us to use them.) When SMP creates a thunderstorm, it uses a mix of these two cloud types. Cumulonimbus have the broader / darker appearance you're referring to, and those will continue to appear at all latitudes if a thunderstorm is present.

 

Edited March 25, 2019 by sundog

[kentwerickson]

7 hours ago, sundog said:

I think it's the towering cumulus that tend to be tall and skinny in our representation, and those are the ones that we're going to suppress above 40 degrees North (unless an external injector such as FSGRW explicitly tells us to use them.)

Seems like a reasonable compromise; thanks!