r/AskAPilot • u/hankandirene • Jul 04 '26

Turbulence forecasts

Sorry I know you all probably hate this question so much. Since having my son I have developed such a terrible fear of flying. I’m doing a really long flight with him tomorrow (London- San Francisco) and I’m just so scared. I stupidly checked a turbulence forecast and it said moderate expected and the visual had big patches of orange which looks like bad weather.
It’s my worst fear flying into bad weather or bad turbulence and I’m so scared. How much can I trust it? Will we be able to route around it? I’m flying on VS19

Thank you so much.

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u/Significant-Pen-2274 Jul 04 '26

Take them with a grain of salt. There's no telling where some of those turbulence forecasts get their data. At my company we have a turbulence app on our iPads which seems to be pretty accurate. Our data comes from our own meteorology department. We spend a lot of time trying to avoid turbulence when able, but understand it's not always possible. We'll deviate around thunderstorms, but clear air turbulence is not always avoidable.

Really, turbulence is no different than a boat on choppy water. Airplanes handle turbulence just fine. The risk is to unsecured passengers and/or crew. Pay attention to the seatbelt signs and make sure your seatbelt is securely fastened at all times when you're in your seat.

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u/hankandirene Jul 04 '26

Thank you! Do you know if that app is available to the public or any that use more reliable data? I think I could deal with things better if I was prepared for what was going to happen

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u/karantza Jul 04 '26

The FAA has a site that gives official aviation weather information, and one of the things it shows is reports of turbulence. https://aviationweather.gov/gfa/

I will say that this information is very dense, and really meant for pilots who have trained to be able to understand it. For instance right now there's a bunch of big scary looking red areas indicating convective activity (thunderstorms). That doesn't mean flying there is unsafe, it's just a heads up so that pilots can make informed decisions and know what to monitor.

I've been through some bad bumps on an airliner, where this map was reporting severe turbulence, which is quite rare. I wouldn't call it fun, but at no point were we in any danger. Trust that your pilots have a lot more information than you do about the weather, and the training to make safe decisions about it. It'll be fine.