Got in-flight turbulence worries? My mom does. Get maps, info and forecasts…
Wind shear scares the heck out of my mom. Turbulence too. Never mind that airplanes are one of the safest forms of transportation in humankind’s existence, if she’s not in or can’t see the driver’s seat, who knows what the heck is going on and where the heck they’re going.
And now, there’s Turbulence Forecast. Turbulence Forecast is a new site that publishes information about, yes, turbulence. They’ve got two highlighted information offerings: One, a U.S. map with the areas where there might be turbulence sometime in the next 48 hours outlined. The only problem with that: Right now that outline includes most of the western United States:
Is that useful? I’m not sure it is. “Yes, there will be turbulence somewhere over California, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, parts of Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, and little parts of Texas, Kansas and Nebraska.” Right.
What’s more useful: the airplane pilot reports of turbulence (“Pilot Reports (PIREPs) of Turbulence”) page. This map shows you where the turbulence happened and how intense that turbulence was. It doesn’t tell you when it happened, which would be useful information.
Turbulence Forecast also provides:
- A world map with turbulence incidents highlighted
- More specific hour-by-hour turbulence forecasts
- A general-interest blog
- Forums, where the main attraction is the “Personalized Forecasts” (which come with this disclaimer: “Personalized Forecasts are a best effort guess about your flight. They should not be used as a reason to cancel a flight or change plans nor are they authoritative on what you will actually experience. Forecasts could be and have been very wrong on several occasions. They are provided as a free service to the flying community based on our interpretation of the data. They should not be used by anyone forward of row 1 in an airplane (that is, anyone flying the aircraft).”
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