News - Blogs - Turbulence How to forecast it in time for holiday travel

Turbulence: How to forecast it in time for holiday travel
Published: 11/30/2011 7:00 AM
Last Modified: 1/9/2012 3:42 PM

I am on that plane (back in June 2007) and I felt the turbulence (air pockets from a windy June day in Oklahoma City) for several days afterward. Maj. John Klatt of the Oklahoma Air National Guard mercifully ended the flight early when I was ready to pass out. STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World File

What would compel a motion sickness prone reporter to fly in a stunt plane? I met the height and weight requirements (Read: I am short and small). Maj. John Klatt of the Oklahoma Air National Guard was part of the 2007 Guarding America Defending Freedom aerobatic team and offered the flight to a Tulsa World reporter at Wiley Post in Oklahoma City. STEPHEN PINGRY/Tulsa World File

I do not fear flying. I fear the weather surrounding my flight.

Perhaps its revisionist history, but I don't remember dealing with turbulence nearly as much as I have in flights around Oklahoma and Texas as I did in and out of Wisconsin.

When Southwest gave its little "bling" for us to fasten our seatbelts as we entered something called a "circle pattern" in the midst of windy San Antonio weather, I was bracing for the worst.

We hit air pockets. We hit the remnants of some rain. I was clinching my teeth, closing my eyes and trying to think of anything except air travel.

Now, safely back on the ground (or rather, the fifth floor of the Tulsa World building), I had to ask Tulsa National Weather Service meteorologist Karen Hatfield if there was any way I could have known to take motion sickness medicine beforehand. Here goes!

What causes turbulence?

1) When you fly through or near an upper level storm system or jet stream, the upward motions in the atmosphere associated with that can cause the plane to rise and sink quickly.

2) When you are landing or taking off and happen to fly through a frontal surface, the density difference and wind shear can cause the same rising or sinking feeling. (Hatfield: "I had that happen once on a flight into OKC, and being the weather nerd that I am, I loved it!")

3) Flying over mountain ranges - like the Rockies - can result in turbulence from mountain waves.

4) With small planes especially, turbulence can be caused at lower altitudes during the afternoon hours by convective thermals; days with cumulus clouds present will have this kind of turbulence.

It's related to weather, so can you forecast turbulence?

The Aviation Weather Center, located in Kansas City, issues SIGMETs (SIGnificant METeorological Information) for expected turbulence. They can be accessed here: tulsaworld.com/turbulence. There are also links on that page to pilot reports of turbulence.

Would any types of weather ground a plane so we don't have to endure turbulence hopefully?

The specifics are based on which airport you're flying into/out of. They are called the "airport minimums" and are based on how high the clouds are, what the lowest visibility is, etc. Thunderstorms on station always ground flights, and each airport has its own protocol for how to deal with snow, sleet, and freezing rain.

You can check flight info and more on Tulsa International Airport at tulsaworld.com/airport. This site also includes toll-free numbers and site links to each major airline (American, Continental, Delta, Southwest and United) that serves Tulsa.

From someone that deals with motion sickness regularly, my best combats to turbulence are (a) make yourself too tired to be awake during the flight, or (b) take LIGHT motion sickness medicine or anything containing ginger beforehand. The heavy motion sickness medicines will make you too groggy to function hours after your flight - and the turbulence - are over.

--Althea Peterson

PS: Those photos and the captions are 100 percent real. The accompanying story that does not mention how motion sick I felt ran on June 7, 2007 here. I was only a few months into my first year at the Tulsa World at the time.

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Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

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RAINFALL

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Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
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Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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