Find challenging weather flights in MSFS

Choose a route for the weather expected when you land, with filters for your aircraft and available flying time.

BadWx helps you find a flight when you want a challenging arrival in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 or 2024. It compares routes between monitored airports with METAR observations and TAF forecasts, looking for adverse weather near your estimated arrival time.

Start with your aircraft and available time

1. Choose an aircraft profile. Its cruise speed and range affect which routes fit and when you are likely to arrive. Select the closest available profile, then check the exact aircraft variant in SimBrief.
2. Review the preflight allowance. The arrival estimate includes the preparation time shown in Settings, currently 40 minutes by default. Settings is read-only; if you take longer to prepare, recheck the forecast for your actual arrival.
3. Filter the results. Region matches either end of a route. Flight-time filters exclude preflight; the arrival clock includes it.
4. Compare airports. Sort by departure or arrival airport to group routes by airport code. Select a code in the results for airport details.

Choose the kind of weather you want

Use the destination weather filters to narrow the available routes. Selecting several weather types includes routes matching any of them. Settings displays the visibility, wind, gust and ceiling thresholds; these cannot be edited in the public planner.

For a low-visibility session, begin with Fog / Vis or Low Ceiling. For a windy arrival, try Wind / Gusts and check the actual reported and forecast winds in the weather details. A wind speed alone does not tell you the crosswind component for a particular runway.

The filters only narrow qualifying routes. Light rain, mist or haze alone may not qualify, so the list is not a catalogue of every airport reporting those conditions.

Compare Severity and Arrival Match

Severity is a relative 1–10 score combining departure and arrival weather flags, with an extra weighting for low visibility or low cloud at a night arrival. Arrival Match reflects forecast-window alignment, weather flags and forecast horizon. It is not a probability of encountering that weather.

Expand Details to inspect distance, arrival uncertainty and the adverse forecast window. Use METAR / TAF there to read the reports. The METAR and TAF guide explains why weather now can differ from weather at landing.

Take the route into your simulator

Open the route in SimBrief to prepare a flight plan, then use the simulator's live weather mode for a session based on current conditions. BadWx does not control the simulator's weather. Weather updates, simulator modeling and your actual departure time can all change what you encounter.

Follow the SimBrief planning guide to see what gets prefilled and what to review before flying.

Why might the results be empty?

The monitored airports may be calm, your aircraft or filters may exclude routes, or adverse weather may fall outside your estimated arrival. Try Reset filters or another aircraft profile. Reset restores the region, flight-time and weather-type filters; it keeps your aircraft and does not change the weather thresholds.

Snow, freezing drizzle, freezing rain and ice crystals are ignored as triggers by default for simulator realism. The public Settings view cannot re-enable them, and selecting Snow / Ice does not override that configuration. An airport can still qualify through another weather trigger.