I have tried creating a system for large scale weather based on physical factors many times without success.
Whatever I come up with fails due to two issues.
1) Initial conditions
2) Calculation complexity
So I have come up with yet another approach that is working pretty well so far.
I allow the designers to specify a bunch of high and low pressure zones( with values and velocities) and connect them with weather fronts.
This is by no means realistic, but the results work well enough.
My problem is now I want to add more realism. At the moment I just create a bunch of clouds based on distance from the weather front and the local air pressure.
Now I want to add clouds based on terrain effects.
The problem with this is I really need to work out an ambient temperature value for each location on the map.
This runs me back into the initial value problem.
I have calculated the ETR* value of the sun for each location, but that only gives me a heating effect so I need a start temperature.
Has anyone come across a way of calculating an ambient temperature for a location based on date/time/location data?
* ETR == extraterrestrial radiation value, the intensity of the sun light in a location.