Clouds (Photo credit: mnsc)
It’s turning into a wet day here in Berlin. Storms are on their way and a soft summer rain is falling all across the city. I love stormy weather. I wanted to go to the observation deck of our local airport today, but I think that will have to wait until tomorrow.
Sitting here looking at the radar I see a bunch of storms all over Germany. If you look at the warnings that have been issued, 80% of Germany is in red right now. And I begin to think that there must be planes in the air right now dodging these (some of them very intense) storms. Pilots right now all over Germany are ascending to get over the storm or attempting to go around. Storm clouds can reach a height of 75,000 feet and be as large an entire state! What happens when going up or down or left or right doesn’t work and pilots have no option but to go through a storm, whether for an extended period of time or just to break through for a landing/take-off?
A commercial aircraft flying into the clouds over Los Angeles (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Have you ever seen one of those radars that shows all of the airplanes over a certain area (if not, here you go http://www.flightradar24.com/)? There are parts of the country that are almost completely covered with air traffic! If you were to take the weather radar and lay it on top of the air traffic radar, you would most certainly find planes that are currently right smack dab in the middle of Mother Nature’s wrath. Which makes me think: What’s it like to fly into a thunderstorm?
So far on the flights that I have had, I have never experienced more than a slight jiggle in the airplane. Just enough to get my coke fizzing. However, I have heard stories from people who have flown through inclement weather and have experienced a drop in altitude of hundreds of feet in a matter of a few seconds. How often do things like this happen? Have you ever experienced a severely turbulent flight? Did your flight ever get caught in a storm? Let us know using the comment section below!
The Duncan Experience 