Pretty much every U.K. based route. Happened in TSW2. Would’ve thought with the new lighting and weather this would’ve been fixed. I guess not.
Part of the reason is TSW does not observe putting the clock forward during summer time, as such its the UK routes will be UTC all year round instead of UTC+1 during the summer. For the london area sunset at the moment is 19:31 but in TSW would be 18:31 which if the weather isn't so great means it probably will be dark approaching around half 6 in early September
This bothered me as well. And it is not only UK routes. I played a timetable service on München-Augsburg, starting at 17:00 on an early September day, and it was already dark in-game. I was playing from approximately the same longitude as the route, sitting behind a window, also at 17:00 on an early September day, and it was still sunny outside, not even close to twilight.
Just move it back a month and choose August as September and so on. If DTG chose not to let the clocks go forward/back regarding sunrise/sunset, follow my advice.
I also noticed December doesn’t enable snowy weather conditions. I’m from the Southern Hemisphere, so I assumed it can also snow in December hence the whole white Christmas thing. Is this not the case?
Depends on the temperature. The game shows the temperature when selecting time/day, as long as it drops below 0 degrees Celcius there'll be snow instead of rain. Not sure there'll be snow on a clear day though. After all, snow needs to fall down from the sky first. If December isn't cold enough (freezing), try January.
FYI: latitude has more impact than longitude on the local sunset/-rise times. E.g. Amsterdam lies at about the same longitude as Montpellier, but the sun will set earlier in Montpellier during summer than in Amsterdam. In winter it's the other way around. But I do get what you mean, 17:00 is way too early for the sun to set in München in September.
My question is if it snows in December in real life and whether the game should reflect that. As you note, you need to at least select January to have snow conditions become an option, so is the temperature that December is set as too high or does it really not snow in December in Europe?
Depends whereabouts in Europe and it really differs per year. We usually don't get a lot of snow over my place (the Netherlands). If we're lucky we've got a centimeter of snow for a few days. Although a few years back we gotten significantly more snow which remained for a few weeks. Thing is, with temperatures close to zero, it only needs to be a few degrees warmer than usual and the snow will just melt away. And even if its freezes, you'd need fresh snow to fall in the first place. It's not uncommon for snow falling at night, but during the day temperaturs start to rise above zero, and the snow just melting away the same day. Being near the sea we also got a more milder climate than countries more distant from the sea. (I believe Germany, in general, gets colder winters and warmer summers than we do). Not sure if things in the UK are any different. I guess the UK being a large country, they have different results in the south and in the north. Pretty sure they have more snow in Scandinavia than in Iberia.
In TSW2 I've had this exact behaviour driving in November on Rapid Transit in rain, after sunset the temperatures drop and the rain becomes snow. So I guess it is possible in TSW to encounter snow in late November/December, but only if temperatures drop e.g. at night (or, if I'm not mistaken, at high altitudes).