时间:2025-04-26 19:21:50 来源:网络整理编辑:焦點
As the destructive Hurricane Laura has been making its way up from the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday and
As the destructive Hurricane Laura has been making its way up from the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday and Thursday, players in the recently released Microsoft Flight Simulatornoticed that they could fly right by a digital version of the massive storm thanks to the game's live weather simulation.
Tweet may have been deleted
It's a viscerally impressive and imposing sight. To be able to get a clear look at a real-time approximation of Laura without any of the danger involved with being that close to the storm is a unique experience.
As a comparison to what it's like to actuallyfly through a hurricane, here's a video from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration pilot Nick Underwood.
Tweet may have been deleted
Underwood flies through hurricanes to collect data that is used to better inform forecasters and improve the accuracy of their predictions, which in turn allows forecasters to warn people in the path of hurricanes like Laura earlier.
As they fly through storms, hurricane hunters, as these pilots are known as, deploy devices called dropsondes which collect data like temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind speed and direction, sending that information back up to the plane before they hit the water. Pilots also penetrate the eyes of hurricanes, as getting the location of the center of the eye is especially important information for forecasters plotting the path of hurricanes, according to The Hurricane Hunters Association.
While Flight Simulatorpilots are not as vital to the understanding of hurricanes as pilots cruising through the real thing, the game pilots get to take different looks at Laura that can help show the scale of the storm that grew from a Category 3 into a Category 4 before it made landfall in east Texas and western Louisiana.
Tweet may have been deleted
Flight Simulatorpilots also have an aesthetic advantage of getting a look at the billowy cloud formations through a third-person view that isn't affected by things like rain and high wind speeds.
Tweet may have been deleted
Of course, the weather that's represented in Microsoft Flight Simulatorisn't exactly perfect. In his own flight through the storm, Washington Post reporter Gene Park found it to be relatively calm and noted that the clouds don't swirl like in a real hurricane.
But Flight Simulatorstill does an impressive job with its weather system. The simulated weather system is created in partnership with Meteoblue, a company that measures weather data around the world and can reconstruct patterns all over the world.
For Flight Simulatorspecifically, Meteoblue co-founder Mathias D. Muller explained in a video that they divide the world up into 250 million relatively small boxes including 60 vertical layers up to the stratosphere, each of which has its own temperature, pressure, wind speed, and precipitation. All of that data is stitched together with satellite image data from Bing maps to create realistic weather patterns.
TopicsGaming
Plane makes emergency landing after engine rips apart during flight2025-04-26 18:37
'Sucker Punch,' Zack Snyder's hated 2011 movie, is actually good2025-04-26 18:13
Jon Favreau teases his Star Wars TV series with an alarming set photo2025-04-26 18:09
'Toxic' is a sadly perfect word of the year for 20182025-04-26 17:52
New Zealand designer's photo series celebrates the elegance of aging2025-04-26 17:10
'Superstore' has the best TV workplace romance since 'The Office'2025-04-26 17:02
Sea ice in the central Arctic should be growing. It's not.2025-04-26 16:48
Chrissy Teigen's Emmy Awards face is a relatable cringe meme2025-04-26 16:46
More than half of women in advertising have faced sexual harassment, report says2025-04-26 16:38
Fans are worried about that 'American Horror Story: Apocalypse' finale2025-04-26 16:35
Make money or go to Stanford? Katie Ledecky is left with an unfair choice.2025-04-26 19:13
Palau is the world's first country to ban sunscreen toxic to coral reefs2025-04-26 19:01
Banksy's shredded art stunt is a beautiful meme now2025-04-26 18:48
Cathay Pacific doesn't give an F, spells its name wrong on plane2025-04-26 18:41
This weird squid looks like it has googly eyes, guys2025-04-26 18:32
The OnePlus 6T has an official launch date: Oct. 302025-04-26 18:00
An astronaut explains what living through a rocket failure was like2025-04-26 17:42
Audio of Jamal Khashoggi's death probably didn't come from Apple Watch2025-04-26 16:47
Mall builds real2025-04-26 16:41
Apple antitrust lawsuit heads to the Supreme Court2025-04-26 16:36