The turbulence experienced in airplanes results from unexpected changes in airflow

Pilots are familiar with multiple types of turbulence, each with varying severity

Each type is defined based on what disrupts airflow in the atmosphere, including thunderstorms, mountains, and wakes produced by aircraft that previously took off. Pilots classify turbulence as light, moderate, severe, or extreme based on how it affects aircraft movement.

View the most turbulent flight routes and airports around the world

Using data from NOAA and the UK Met Office, these maps identify South America as the geographic region with the highest average turbulence. The most turbulent flights in North America are all found in the western United States.

Turbulence is needed to make airplanes more stable and golf balls fly farther

Vortex generators—small fins placed along airplane wings—create small eddies that prevent airflow separation, maintaining lift and preventing stalls. Golf balls have dimples that create a turbulent boundary layer on their surface, minimizing drag forces.

Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of severe turbulence

Severe turbulence over the North Atlantic has increased by 55% over the past 40 years, driven by strengthened jet streams and storm systems. Ongoing increases in global temperatures, which fuel these changes, may triple severe turbulence incidents in the coming decades.

Turbulence has been called the most important unsolved problem in classical physics

Despite being the most common type of fluid flow in our world, scientists have struggled to model turbulent flow accurately. Though behaving unpredictably, understanding inertia and viscosity can help determine whether turbulence will occur.

Scientists use ground-based radar data to detect turbulence within clouds

NCAR developed the NEXRAD Turbulence Detection Algorithm and the Graphical Turbulence Guidance system to provide forecasts up to 18 hours ahead using ground-based Doppler radar data. Software systems also utilize an automated observation and reporting package—the EDR system—found on Delta, United, and Southwest Airlines aircraft.

Most commercial planes get struck by lightning multiple times a year

This piece explains why commercial aircraft rarely crash in thunderstorms, detailing how pilots use onboard radar, shared reports, and strict avoidance protocols to navigate storms that look far more dangerous on screen than in reality.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

When experiencing turbulence, fluid elements undergo stretching and folding

Simulations show patches of fluid particles, such as splashes of milk, bend under turbulent flow, creating curvature that grows linearly then exponentially. This accelerated deformation enhances folding and mixing faster than other methods, such as stirring or beating.

Turbulence is crucial to the formation of stars in molecular clouds

Within simulations of these clouds, gravity, jets, supernovae, and galactic motion-induced stirring have been shown to develop turbulence that creates shocks. These turbulent shocks move quickly in low-density regions and slow in high-density areas, forming lumps of matter with sufficient gravitational force to collapse and initiate fusion, birthing a star.

Laminar flow moves in smooth, parallel layers, while turbulent flow is chaotic

In laminar flow, particles that make up a fluid move in consistent paths that do not cross each other. Contrastingly, differences across the speed of these particles cause them to mix, creating turbulence when viscosity cannot suppress the differences.

During World War II, fighter plane turbulence was used to make ice cream.

Fast-changing conditions during their formation make tornado forecasting difficult

The final steps of tornadogenesis—the process of forming a tornado—depend on near-surface details, such as local geography, which are difficult for radar to observe and affect how funnel clouds make contact with the ground. Inconsistencies in storm behavior have limited the amount of advance warning people receive before tornadoes touch down.

Understanding turbulence, which is characterized by growing chaos at multiple scales

As energy is lost in fluids undergoing turbulent, non-linear flow, particles will collectively form eddies, or whirlpools, of various sizes that mix together. The energy cascade of larger eddies becoming smaller ones before dissipating completely varies based on the initial conditions of the fluid, a characteristic feature of chaotic systems.

Airplanes generate enough lift to fly by accelerating air faster over their moving wings, which makes the pressure above the wings lower than the pressure below.

In the 1940s, pilots flew into thunderstorms to learn about their formation and properties as part of the Thunderstorm Project, the first multiagency meteorological study mandated and funded by Congress.

Mathematics proves turbulence's chaos creates super diffusion

Turbulent flow is responsible for the rapid scattering of dandelion seeds, volcanic ash, and untied balloons. Its swirling behavior accelerates particle scattering faster than other mixing methods, as particles acquire energy from the interactions of eddies.

Tornado formation relies on wind shear to create a tube of rotating air

Once a horizontal vortex is created by air circulating between winds of different directions and speeds, an updraft, such as those seen in powerful thunderstorms, tilts the vortex vertically. The updraft then strengthens the vortex, which becomes a tornado upon touching the ground.

The US air traffic control system is safe but due for major technological updates

On any given day, over 3 million passengers fly on roughly 45,000 flights in the US. Flying today is safer than ever, but air traffic controllers deal with outdated technology that can interfere with pilot communication.

How jet streams, which reside in the troposphere, shape and confine pockets of atmospheric air

These fast-flowing ribbons of air are hundreds of kilometers wide and typically travel from west to east due to Earth's rotation, with the polar front and subtropical jets serving as major drivers of global circulation. Warmer air near the equator pushes the polar front jets toward the poles, which can buckle and deform them as they contain frigid polar vortex systems.

Tornadoes, or twisters, have been seen on every continent but Antarctica

Because tornadoes require rising warm air to form, some meteorologists have suggested that urban environments—locations where human landscape modification has introduced materials that trap thermal energy—can enhance the conditions needed for tornado formation. Tornadoes have been reported to cause ear "popping" due to drastic changes in air pressure.

Atmospheric processes amplify the strength of storms by coalescing clouds

Research has shown that turbulent mixing of air at the edges of clouds and other small-scale thermal activity beneath them help clouds group together, intensifying short bursts of rainfall, especially in tropical regions. Simulations reveal this produces more powerful storms than predicted by older models, though they may occur less frequently.

View the transition from laminar to turbulent flow

Using a dye released in the water, streamlines, which are parallel to one another and consistent at low flow velocities, become visible. As the water moves more quickly, viscosity cannot suppress the velocity change, and streamlines become chaotic, creating turbulence.

The aviation industry built trust in automation by keeping pilots in the cockpit

Nearly 70% of Americans feel uncomfortable riding in a driverless car, and 81% of them would not fly on a pilotless plane. However, automated systems on planes were slowly introduced and advertised as enhancing safety—an approach that may benefit driverless vehicles.

Aviation expert breaks down the safest seat on an airplane

The bottom line is air travel is very safe—much safer than road travel. But you can always up your chances. So, here's one expert's take on the safest seat on an airplane.

Watch how scientists learn about hurricanes by flying into them

A specialized fleet of Air Force planes is built to fly into hurricanes and gather critical data from inside the storm. Beyond radar and microwave sensors, the planes are equipped with dropsondes—small instruments dropped into storms to measure pressure, temperature, and wind.

In a tornado outbreak, a single severe weather system can spawn multiple twisters

By maintaining the ingredients for tornadoes—differences in wind speed and direction across altitudes, moisture, and rising air—for long periods of time as it moves across a region, a severe thunderstorm can continuously produce tornadoes by lifting multiple columns of horizontally rotating air.

Tornadoes produce inaudible signals to humans hours before forming

Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have found that tornado-producing storms generate specific sounds below the range of human hearing, much like the infrasonic signals produced by earthquakes and avalanches. Although difficult to distinguish from wind noise, scientists hope to build systems that use these signals to improve tornado forecasting.

Clouds' subtle climate effects require significant computational power to simulate

Responsible for reflecting sunlight and preventing thermal energy from entering the Earth system while also trapping energy and keeping it in the system, clouds are understood to substantially influence climate predictions. Because even supercomputers struggle to accurately model their dynamic behavior, researchers have used AI to indirectly incorporate clouds into climate models.

Differences in pressure and temperature between atmospheric gases create wind

Because Earth's surface is not uniformly heated by the sun at all times, pockets of warmer and cooler air will form and interact. Warmer pockets of less dense air will rise, leaving gaps for cooler, denser air to move in. Wind is this movement of air from high-pressure to low-pressure areas.

Trade winds blow from east to west due to the Coriolis Effect

Warm air rises near the equator while cooler air sinks near the poles, creating circulation patterns that curve due to Earth's rotation. At the equator, doldrums—calm regions of no wind—build warm, moist air, creating storms.

Instabilities in the polar jet stream can bring cold Arctic air southward

The polar jet stream marks the boundary between mid-latitude air and the much colder polar air, which are normally contained by the polar vortex—a ring of strong winds that circles the Arctic around 16 to 50 kilometers (10 to 30 miles) above the Earth's surface. Climate change may be responsible for "blocking patterns" that distort the jet stream, allowing polar air to leak into lower latitudes.

The origin of chaos theory, colloquially known as the 'butterfly effect'

The theory explains that systems following well-understood physical laws can still produce unpredictable outcomes due to small variations in their initial conditions. Originally identified in weather data, elements of chaos have been observed in stock market fluctuations, cardiac arrhythmias, and the evolution of online social movements.

The drastically different seat tiers on airplanes are a prime example of 'price segmentation,' which is key to keeping airlines profitable.

When modeling the fastest way to board passengers onto an airplane, research shows that random boarding is often faster than boarding in groups.

On average, every in-service airplane is struck by lightning once a year

The average strikes per surface area per year on Earth suggest that aircraft should only be struck once every 1,000 years, based on their size, but proximity to storm clouds' high electrical fields increases strike rates. Aircraft are designed as continuous conductive shells, causing electricity to flow along their exterior and preventing internal damage.

Commercial air travel's early days: Flights were short, cold, depressurized, and generally comfortable

After World War II, airlines competed for their high-end passengers by offering cocktails, meals, and plush seats, cultivating the image of the elite "Jet Set." By the 1960s, air transport was completely changing global trade and offering big profits to companies able to ship via plane.

Learn about the bodies that govern the US commercial airline industry, such as the FAA

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulates US air travel, monitoring both safety and advancement. But despite deregulation in the 1970s, the industry has other governing bodies, too, including the US Department of Transportation and the TSA.

The engineers proposing massive airbags for airplanes

Though they are famously rare, airplane crashes are some of the most shocking catastrophes when they occur. These researchers are dreaming up an implausible safety feature to help crashing planes land safely.

Though less common, tornadoes can form without the presence of thunderstorms

Supercell tornadoes involve rising warm air—updrafts—from the strongest type of thunderstorm—supercells—to help turn horizontally rotating tunnels of air into vertical columns. In non-supercell tornadoes, which are generally weaker as a result of forming within less energetic systems, vertical rotation is present from the start near ground level.

Most tornadoes occur during the afternoon and evening hours

While there is no official national tornado season as with Atlantic hurricanes, many tornadoes form in the presence of thunderstorms, which are fueled by solar heating and the energy released by the condensation of water vapor. The airflow instabilities created from this energy build throughout the day until the sun sets.

'Breather holes' in airplane windows help manage cabin pressure

Airplane windows have three layers of acrylic: the super durable outside layer, the inner pane which acts like a "scratch" surface, and the middle pane with the tiny hole. This bleed hole allows pressurized cabin air to be borne by the strong outer pane while preventing the inner pane from breaking.

Horsehead-shaped features seen on the sun and the clouds of Earth and Jupiter are examples of Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities, where a faster-moving fluid rolls atop a slower-moving fluid.

Airports at high elevations, like Denver International Airport, have longer runways than most airports because airplanes cannot take off or land as quickly in thinner air.

Tornado chasers include scientists conducting field projects

Research teams use drones, mobile weather stations, and radar systems to capture real-time meteorological data, better understand conditions that favor tornado formation, and improve forecasting models. As of 2022, model limitations result in roughly 70% of tornado warnings being false alarms.

An explanation distinguishing the butterfly effect from causality, necessity, and sufficiency

In pop culture, the analogy has conveyed the impression that the flapping of a butterfly's wings has a cascading effect that directly produces a tornado somewhere else on Earth. However, butterfly-wing flapping alone is insufficient to cause tornadoes, as the complexity of atmospheric systems requires many more conditions to produce them, any of which can be the tipping point to initiate tornadogenesis.

An overview of Earth's atmospheric cells and how they distribute Earth's uneven heating

The Hadley, Ferrel, and Polar cells are circulation patterns that act like gears, moving warmer air from the equator to the poles. The rising and falling of air currents within these patterns creates semi-persistent regions of low and high pressure, which contribute to the formation of regional climates, such as tropical zones.

Wind is the movement of air caused by the sun's uneven heating of Earth

The tilt, curvature, and variations in Earth's surface composition across the globe cause different regions to receive different amounts of solar radiation. As the Earth spins and tries to achieve thermal equilibrium, air masses move and interact, creating wind.

Tornado myths include suggestions to hide beneath a bridge or to open windows

Winds can accelerate due to a tunneling effect as they pass under a structure, making seeking shelter from a tornado in a mobile home or recreational vehicle highly discouraged. Significant tornado damage results from debris being picked up and hurled by strong winds, making it unsafe to be near windows that may shatter.

The first known instance of a fire tornado occurred in 2003

During pyro-tornadogenesis, many processes that create thunderstorms from wildfires, such as rising hot air and steam from evaporated water in forests, fuel the formation of a fire tornado. The increasing rates of wildfires due to climate change are expected to make this phenomenon and other extreme weather more common.