I’d like to see new weather patterns in the game. Pre-set cloud formations. i.e overcast, clouds look noticeably darker in colour. Overcast with distant thunder strikes. Sleet snow, noticeably louder droplets on the windshield.
The weather systems do appear to be getting some subtle updates but I totally agree that additional weather patterns are needed. The fog needs to stop happening all year round, in the middle of the day. It's particularly weird to see it in the summer in the UK when the sun is too strong to allow fog or mist to develop. And you're right about thunderstorms. Depending on geological features and light pollution, lightning can be seen from up to 200 miles away (usually as flashes in distant Cumulonimbus cloud tops) whereas a general rule of thumb is that thunder can be heard between 5 and 20 miles away depending on the level of background noise. It would be great to see realistic distant lightning which changes to cloud-to-cloud and cloud to ground flashes with distant rumbles of thunder before it's on top of you. The frequency of storms has to be adjusted. They're rare and rarely long-lasting outside of British Summer Time. Thundersnow is even rarer. If I'm being a real geek about it, I'd like to see single and supercell storms too.
The weather is a bit too simplistic and dynamic weather isn’t the best. I also think the game looks bad in a lot of very cloudy or wet conditions so I unashamedly stick to a nice 50% or less cloud coverage on custom weather but it is the same old cloud type at the same height above the player. Quite a lot of the times I do pick bad weather to play in I end up quitting back to the menu and starting again with clearer skies and no rain just because of how it looks. Not exactly weather but I do like nighttime runs with a clear sky and snow on the ground so I can see the scenery as the snow covered parts show up in the darkness. For a very advanced feature, I’d actually quite like a fixed cloud layer for mountain routes so you start off below the cloud and then instead of the cloud layer rising as you climb and remaining the same height above you as it does now, you drive into the cloud layer and could even eventually pop out above it, but that is a dream I don’t think we would ever see. I think about it every time I drive on the Bernina Line. Maybe a bit too advanced for a train sim.
