Microsoft Flight Simulator takes players close to what?

Players of the recently released video game Microsoft Flight Simulator just discovered they can get an up-close look at a digital version of Hurricane Laura, the Category 4 storm that made landfall on the Louisiana coast early Thursday morning.

This is thanks to the game’s live weather feature, which replicates weather events happening in the world. The feature was developed in partnership with Meteoblue, which measures and reconstructs weather patterns around the globe. The system works by breaking up the earth and atmosphere into small boxes, about 250 million total. Each box has its own weather data gathered from real-world measurements including precipitation, pressure, temperature and wind speed. All the boxes are then combined with satellite image data from Bing maps in order to replicate real-world weather.

Of course, flying through a digital version of a hurricane is nothing like the real thing, but it does give us a unique perspective on these storms. And it’s a lot less dangerous.