The possibility to see weatherinformation in The VPV is Munch appreciated. But as seen in the attached file I think TCU`s will be hard to see in flight with the white look. Perhaps black or Dark Grey would be better?
Well today I saw how TCU’s looks like in the VPV, and it is OK. At first I assumed the clouds shown in the screen print was TCU’s but it is not. My question now is more how come, that the reported TCU’s in the METAR and TAF on the screen print are not shown in the VPV?
I expected that.
Hi Karl,
Great question! The simple answer is that the source for the SIGWX, wind aloft and the cloud layers are not the METAR and TAF but the worldwide aviation 48h forecast from the Deutsche Wetterdienst. So they do not use the same sources.
The reason for this is that the METAR only reports the actual weather directly above the airfield. TAFs are issued approximately four times a day, for an approximately 18h period. And describe an area within approximately 5NM of the airfield.
This is in our opinion less useful for in the VPV, since that covers the weather over the whole planned route and takes the travel time into account as well.
As a further improvement on the actual weather, we have planned to implement a 1h forecast with 5 minutes interval.
The TCU's are not shown as a single cloud (like the CB's) but are part of the cloud layer's. Forecasted CB's are shown as a whole, from base to top.
Please let me know if this makes it more clear or if you have any suggestion.
Cheers,
Tim