Worried about turbulence? The hack for discovering how bumpy your next flight will be
Turbulence is undoubtedly the scariest aspect of a flight for nervous fliers — with their fears compounded by not knowing how long it'll last or how severe it's going to get.
But fortunately there's a hack to help with this, a tool that gives passengers-in-waiting almost as much information about turbulence levels for their upcoming flight as pilots receive.
The feature is by website turbli.com, which monitors and predicts turbulence using the same sources pilots and airlines use to plan their flights — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the MetOffice.
Fliers who believe in a "better the devil you know" approach to life simply input their upcoming departure and arrival airports, and flight numbers, into turbli.com's forecasting tool to see hour-by-hour turbulence levels for their trip, presented as a graph.
This indicates whether turbulence will be light, moderate or strong along the expected route, along with a one-line summation of how bumpy things will get.
The website describes "light" turbulence as "smooth flight conditions"; "moderate" as leading to "difficulty with walking and food services"; and "strong" as "passengers straining against seat belts".
Further down the page, and viewers can see predicted tailwinds and headwinds, crosswinds at the expected take-off and landing runways, plus thunderstorm forecasts.
The website also produces insightful interactive turbulence maps, with passengers able to plot their upcoming flight route and see any patches of turbulence their plane might pass through.
In addition, turbli.com produces lists of the airports and flight routes that are the worst for turbulence.
In North America, the most turbulent airport for approaches and descents — take-offs and landings are affected by crosswinds, not turbulence — is Denver, Colorado, followed by Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport.
Salt Lake City, Jackson Hole Airport and Las Vegas also make the top 10, with Albuquerque to Denver ranked as the route with the highest average turbulence.
Las Vegas to Reno and Las Vegas to Salt Lake City also make the top 10 most turbulent route table.
Turbulence is caused by warm air rising through cooler air; mountains or manmade structures disrupting air flow, and pockets of air moving in different directions.
It's completely normal and modern aircraft are designed to withstand more turbulence than you'll ever experience on a flight.
According to data from America's Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), there have been only 184 serious turbulence injuries between 2009 and 2023, with 37 of those people passengers, the rest crew members.
North America's 10 most turbulent airports
Denver (17.29 EDR — eddy dissipation rate)
Bozeman (17)
Albuquerque (16.44)
Salt Lake City (16.43)
Jackson Hole Airport (16.14)
Las Vegas (15.74)
Vancouver (15.68)
Reno (15.67)
Seattle (15.49)
Boise (15.40)
North America's most turbulent routes
Albuquerque — Denver (17.75 EDR)
Denver — Jackson (17.45)
Jackson — Salt Lake City (17.41)
Denver — Salt Lake City (16.94)
Bozeman — Denver (16.68)
Ontario — San Diego (16.43)
Boise — Salt Lake City (16.30)
Bozeman — Salt Lake City (16.25)
Las Vegas — Reno (16.06)
Las Vegas — Salt Lake City (15.87)
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