Do pilots fly over thunderstorms?

What happens when en route flights encounter thunderstorms? Jet aircraft can safely fly over thunderstorms only if their flight altitude is well above the turbulent cloud tops. The most intense and turbulent storms are often the tallest storms, so en route flights always seek to go around them.



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When weaker – but still severe – storms target an airport and its surrounding area, most airlines will postpone a takeoff or landing until the most serious part of a storm has passed. If there is a storm cell in the flight path, airlines may reroute the flight in order to prevent turbulence.

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Do Flights Get Cancelled Due to Thunderstorms? Yes, this can happen. In fact, many flights are cancelled regularly around the world due to thunderstorms making it dangerous or impossible to take off.

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Pilots will almost always either fly around the thunderstorm or take a different route that avoids it entirely, if possible. Pilots use weather radar and weather reports to help them stay clear of thunderstorms. Weather radar gives pilots a visual image of the weather around an aircraft.

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Ultimately, it is usually perfectly safe for planes to fly in storms. Today's aircraft, especially big passenger airplanes, are designed to deal with lightning strikes, rain, and other conditions.

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The type of weather that delays and cancels flights is called inclement weather. Inclement weather is categorized as thunderstorms, snowstorms, wind shear, icing, and fog. Any inclement weather is by far the most hazardous. This is the type of weather that causes the most cancellations and delays, not just rain.

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When lightning strikes a plane, it enters through the metal skin of the aircraft and is conducted along its exterior. The aircraft's highly conductive aluminum skin acts as Faraday cages, which safely distribute electricity.

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Turbulence, associated with thunderstorms, can be extremely hazardous, having the potential to cause overstressing of the aircraft or loss of control. Thunderstorm vertical currents may be strong enough to displace an aircraft up or down vertically as much as 2000 to 6000 feet.

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d. Hail. (1) Hail competes with turbulence as the greatest thunderstorm hazard to aircraft. Supercooled drops above the freezing level begin to freeze.

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Although passengers and crew may see a flash and hear a loud noise if lightning strikes their plane, nothing serious should happen because of the careful lightning protection engineered into the aircraft and its sensitive components. Initially, the lightning will attach to an extremity such as the nose or wing tip.

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Landing during a thunderstorm can be dangerous, due to high winds and microbursts, so pilots will usually communicate with air traffic control workers and decide on the best course of action if a storm is in the area.

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While we mostly try to avoid any sort of turbulence to give passengers the smoothest ride possible, we worry mostly about turbulence at or above moderate. We try to counter turbulence by flying around known areas or change altitude.

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Pilots are capable of identifying areas of potential turbulence by using their knowledge of meteorology and weather patterns. One of the simplest ways we avoid turbulence is by avoiding areas with thunderstorms. Convective activity is associated with unstable air, as well as strong updrafts and downdrafts.

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Most pilots try to avoid flying an airplane into severe weather, but not the NOAA Hurricane Hunters. Their job is to fly specially equipped aircraft directly into the eye of the storm to collect crucial data that helps protects lives and property.

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Instrument approach procedures specify minimum flight visibility to land and minimum decent altitudes. If the clouds are too low or the visibility is very poor, a pilot still can't land. Flight visibility is just one factor, however. Rain can make it difficult to see out the windscreen.

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