Going on the preliminary reports, NASA estimates that Hurricane Ida was the fifth-strongest storm ever to hit the continental United States. It made l

Players use Microsoft Flight Simulator to fly through Hurricane Ida in real time

submited by
Style Pass
2021-09-10 18:00:13

Going on the preliminary reports, NASA estimates that Hurricane Ida was the fifth-strongest storm ever to hit the continental United States. It made landfall on August 29 as a category 4 hurricane and subsequently travelled across 1500 miles, impacting 22 states and leaving destruction in its wake. The size was such it was easily visible from space.

A feature of Microsoft Flight Simulator is live weather modelling: the in-game world can reflect what's going on in the real world. When a player enables Real-World Weather the game gathers weather data from the meteorological service Meteoblue and, using Microsoft's Azure AI platform, simulates what is going on in the world. Needless to say, Hurricane Ida is a weather event on an enormous scale. And so Microsoft Flight Simulator pilots decided to fly through it.

The top video shows a player observing the build-up of Hurricane Ida over the Gulf of Mexico. This is the period before the storm makes landfall, where it builds strength in a process called rapid intensification.

Leave a Comment