I am not a great flier.... but I am scheduled to fly from Seattle to Leon Mexico on a CO redeye leaving late Tuesday night and getting into Leon after a connection in Houston on Wednesday morning... the same time that Hurricane Emily is supposed to cross the southern Texas border and plow into mainland Mexico....does this sound like a collision course for disaster for a nervous flier?.....
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Don't worry, they will fly around it.
That is a good question, though. Just a guess, but maybe the answer is no because 1) it might be quite turbulent above the storm even if you're not in the clouds, and 2) if you needed to divert quickly, you're up a creek!
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For all intents and purposes, commercial airliners cannot fly above and over a hurricane. Hurricane tops reach upwards of 50,000+ ft. Same holds true for supercell thunderstorms.
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Commercial aircraft fly around really bad weather, not over it. As noted above, you can't really overfly a hurricane in a commercial plane. Another important consideration is that in the event of an emergency (loss of engine, loss of cabin pressure, etc) the aircraft might have to decend rapidly....and you don't want to decend into horrible weather!
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For all intents and purposes, commercial airliners cannot fly above and over a hurricane. Hurricane tops reach upwards of 50,000+ ft. Same holds true for supercell thunderstorms.
I remember while studying meteorology at the Univ of Oklahoma: one supercell had a reported top of 63,000 feet!!!!
Can a plane fly over a hurricane?
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