Airplane turbulence can start earlier than you expect

Rattled nerves and spilled drinks are the most common outcomes of a choppy flight, but intense air turbulence can also cause bodily harm. And while one well-known cause of air turbulence is thunderstorms, it’s poorly understood how far from a tempest shaky conditions are likely to persist. To answer that question, researchers recently analyzed millions of measurements of air turbulence collected by commercial aircraft. The team found that a heightened risk of a jarring flight extended more than 55 miles away from a thunderstorm, which is roughly three times the storm-avoidance distance currently recommended by the FAA. These findings, published this month in The Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, could inform new guidelines for storm avoidance, the researchers suggest. Pilots and dispatch crews on the ground have long kept an eye trained on the weather. “The links between meteorology and aviation go way, way back,” said Stacey Hitchcock, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Thunderstorms are of particular concern to pilots. “You get really rapid changes in vertical and horizontal motion over short distances,” Dr. Hitchcock said. Those chaotic motions — which can also be caused by jet stream winds and air moving around obstacles like mountains — can cause aircraft to go up and down, creating the tumultuous sensation that’s all too familiar to many fliers. And the sphere of influence of a thunderstorm extended to significant distances, the researchers showed. “You can even go as far as 50, 60, 70 kilometers from a storm and still have double the risk of turbulence,” Dr. Lane said. Overall, the team found that the risk of experiencing light, moderate or severe turbulence remained above background levels up to 55 miles away from a thunderstorm.<br/>