Live weather for MSFS 2020.
Still flying the previous generation? StrataWx rebuilds the real atmosphere around your aircraft and keeps Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 holding it, minute after minute. Same engine as MSFS 2024, with its own app and its own in-sim panel.
From $29.99, once, on StrataSim Shop, and every update to a simulator you own is free. For Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 or 2020, or X-Plane 12, on 64-bit Windows 10 or 11.
The sky is built outside the sim.
MSFS 2020 has no way for an add-on to paint the sky directly. What it accepts is a complete weather state, so the StrataWx app builds one for exactly where you are, from METARs and three global models, and the in-sim panel hands it to the simulator again and again as you fly.
Close the app and MSFS 2020 draws its own weather again. Nothing is changed for good, and there is nothing to restore.
Changes worked in, not dropped in.
Wind, pressure and temperature are eased toward each new state at the speed you choose. Clouds are handled differently on 2020, on purpose: this simulator rebuilds its whole cloud volume whenever a cloud value changes, so nudging layers a little every moment reads as flicker. The panel holds the clouds steady through small drifts, then sets them in one step and holds again.
What is different on 2020.
The weather modelling is the same. What differs is how StrataWx gets into the older simulator, and two features the 2020 simulator cannot take.
An app of its own.
StrataWx for MSFS 2020 installs, activates and updates on its own, beside the MSFS 2024 app if you fly both.
A panel built for 2020.
The in-sim panel is a separate build in the 2020 simulator's own Community folder, Steam or Microsoft Store, and shows as a StrataWx icon on the toolbar.
Restarts are always full ones.
MSFS loads Community add-ons only when it starts. After an install or an update that mentions the panel, close MSFS 2020 completely and start it again. Loading another flight is not enough.
Two MSFS 2024 features stay there.
Continuous transitions and the turbulence you feel in the seat need MSFS 2024. On 2020, turbulence rides on the weather StrataWx sends, with its strength set in the panel.
Limits worth knowing.
Better here than in a refund request. The first two belong to the simulator, and apply to anything that injects weather into MSFS from outside, this included.
One sky at a time.
Weather injected from outside arrives as one weather state for the whole world. StrataWx resolves it for your position and keeps re-resolving it as you move, but at any instant the sky over your wing is the sky two states away.
Radar will not paint the cells.
No cell shape or position reaches the simulator, so an onboard weather radar cannot draw an injected cell. StrataWx draws its own precipitation scope in the app instead.
The app has to be running.
The panel flies what the app serves, and Live reads real observations as they happen, so it needs the internet. Sandbox does not.
Price for MSFS 2020.
One time, on StrataSim Shop, and every update free for as long as you own it.
MSFS 2020
$29.99
One time, on StrataSim Shop.
StrataWx for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
Both MSFS simulators
$35.99
One time, on StrataSim Shop.
MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024 on one licence, each with its own app.
All three
$62.99
One time, on StrataSim Shop.
MSFS 2020, MSFS 2024 and X-Plane 12, on one licence.
Add MSFS 2024
$6.99
One time, on StrataSim Shop.
Already own one MSFS simulator? The cross-grade adds the other, in either direction.
Do I need MSFS 2024 as well?
No. StrataWx for MSFS 2020 is a licence of its own and does not need the newer simulator installed. If you fly both, the licence for both simulators covers each one's app.
I own StrataWx for MSFS 2024. Do I pay again for 2020?
Only the cross-grade, never a second full purchase. It adds the other MSFS simulator to the licence you have, in either direction.
The StrataWx icon is not on my toolbar.
Almost always a restart: MSFS loads the panel only when it starts, so close MSFS 2020 completely and start it again. If it is still missing, check in StrataWx's Settings that it is pointed at the Community folder your simulator really reads.
Will it cost me frames?
Very little. The heavy work happens in the StrataWx app, outside the simulator, so MSFS 2020 only ever receives a finished weather state.
The real sky, in 2020.
From $29.99, once, on StrataSim Shop, and every update to a simulator you own is free. For Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 or 2020, or X-Plane 12, on 64-bit Windows 10 or 11.