akb8812

I'm flying to Newark tomorrow and will land at about 7 in the evening. I looked at the weather forecast for tomorrow and it says thunderstorms in spots and right now I'm having a bit of a panic that I'll have some pretty rough and scary turbulence on approach and landing. I'm not familiar with summer weather in NY so what does this mean? Is there a reason for me to be worried?

BearX220

It can sometimes mean a little light chop during your descent, but typically nothing to worry about.

akb8812

OK, but nothing terrifying like a windstorm would cause? I'm fairly used to them at my airport.

This is the forecast: http://www.accuweather.com/en/us/new.../2700_pc?day=2

Says just partly cloudy in the evening. Maybe I'll be lucky

BearX220

Chances are you will experience nothing remarkable.

etch5895

That could also mean you're flying on Delta

Lost

The pilots don't like thunderstorms either, so they'll stay far enough away so it won't be a danger. If that's not possible, then the flight will be delayed.

CosmosHuman

I was on a flight out of MIA and sound asleep until a clap of thunder, possibly hit of lightening woke me up. I then fell back asleep. I hate storms as well.

pinniped

Can you do a same-day-change and fly earlier?

I'd worry a bit too...thunderstorms in the NYC area could cause delays to stack up by mid/late-afternoon.

But other'n that, not much you can do about it.

RRDD

Are you worried that:
1. you're going to die?
2. you'll be physically hurt by the motion?
3. you'll become ill and vomit?

slawecki

wear pampers.......

pharmawalk

Just keep your seatbelt on and you'll be safe. Nothing to worry about.

pinniped

Statistically speaking, 1 and 2 are rare. The occasional (really, really rare) turbulence-injury story you see usually has to do with clear-air turbulence and people moving about the cabin. On approach, with or without weather, people are seated and wearing seatbelts.

So that leaves 3...which means you should just locate the little baggie in the seatback pocket prior to the turbulence.


(In all seriousness, I haven't been on a real vomit comet in quite a few years. When I used to fly AA F100's into ORD semi-regularly, I had a couple close calls. Never actually tossed cookies on the plane though, thankfully...)

Redhead

You're lucky. I've puked on planes more times than I can count. But then I can't sit in the backseat of a car nor can I even look at any ride like a carousel that goes in circles. I can sometimes manage to sit on a train going backwards. But during thunderstorms I just find the baggie and am prepared.

camachinist

Don't know what's worse, being fearful of T-storms and never experiencing one or not being fearful, or just being ignorant, and getting hit.

I was the latter in late '91 flying into JNB from JFK with a technical stop in Windhoek on a then new SAA 747-400. Went through what I came later to understand as a typical African T-storm on final, in the dark, with lightning and thunder, the plane doing the up and down dance and four big old whatever SAA used back then jet engines spooling up for all they were worth while I was getting really light in the seat. Comparatively, flying bush planes around Africa was a breeze after that

Since the OP already flew, I'll share the flashback I was having when I experienced that:

garkster

And if it's really bad, they do this (picked up from Flightaware a couple of minutes ago).

Chicago O'Hare Intl (KORD) is currently experiencing:
arrival delays for airborne aircraft an average of 37 minutes
departure delays of 1 hours 46 minutes to 2 hours (and increasing) due to thunderstorms
inbound flights delayed at their origin an average of 5 hours 41 minutes due to thunderstorms