Your satellite internet doesn't actually care about clouds—it’s just the hidden liquid water inside them that’s killing your signal.
arXiv · March 17, 2026 · 2603.14008
The Takeaway
A study of Starlink performance revealed that general cloud cover has no significant impact on connection speeds or latency. The interference usually blamed on 'cloudy weather' is actually caused by the density of liquid water (like rain), meaning your signal can stay at full strength even during a heavy overcast.
From the abstract
This paper presents an empirical study of dynamic factors affecting link quality in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications, using Starlink as a case study. Over 56 days, 112 high-quality meteorological measurements in mostly 1-min intervals, co-located with a user terminal, were collected, alongside frequent network performance data. Cloud characteristics were estimated using professional weather instruments such as a ceilometer, microwave radiometer, and vision-language model on sky ima