Best Route for Watching Thunderstorms
 

I love to watch the clouds when flying. One of my favorite routes is flying from Atlanta to the west coast - during the summer in the evening you pass some amazing thunderstorms. What are your favorite routes for watching the passing clouds?

Yes, me too. I always see thunderstorms when my plane is takeoff from FLL. I was on the way to ATL to stay with my sister-in-law. My brother & I flew on Delta from FLL-ATL back in 2004.

Flew in an ATR SJU-BON in September a few years back. At lower altitude, its really different. But very cool.

Routes typically around the equator are good for thunderstorms as are Summer storms over large flat land areas such as Kansas or Manitoba in N.A. or Russia or Poland in Europe/Asia.

These routes are best as you need relatively high temperatures (so 20 C or higher at least) and high humidity (from the Ocean or the air mass) to start any thunderstorm off...

Any route typically going to or from Florida would be good for clouds and thunderstorms but also unfortunately for turbulence :(

I also love watching the clouds, I even used to get paid to do so! :eek:

midsummer redeyes crossing the Rockies and Great Plains ... watching the lightning in the distance can be a real distraction from trying to sleep

I reckon in the U.S. something like IAD-PHX in the late afternoon/early evening in the summer would be promising. UA939 takes off at 5 pm at IAD, passes through some prime Southern summer storm territory before crossing through Northern Texas or Oklahoma and finally heading into the desert.

Of course, you all realize airlines steer clear of CBs as standard procedure? So at best, you can only see it from a distance.

That being said, you should also add in the time of day and season you watch those storms. At night its better, since the cloud-to-cloud lightning is much clearer to see. Also spring and summer usually have the highest frequency of storms. Over the prairies, those tornado-creating supercells often occurs when the dry continental air meet the humid air from the Gulf of Mexico. In winter, there are less chance of thunderstorms (except for the rare thunder snow), although along the Eastern seaboard, the nor'easter storms may churn out some decent thunderstorms, so if you fly from New York to Miami for example, you might see that.

Flying at night (well, twilight) and lightning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGEeqEanyVQ

Airliners are designed to withstand lightning strikes and are in fact struck by lightning on average once a year, with no damage to the plane. So if you are really "lucky" you can witness lightning "up close":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZCzintiS4c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m37z5R2rJ5E

Unbelieveable video

see my post #5 above

in over 2200 flights I have only experienced this once: Feb 1985, Delta L-1011 on approach to LAX (of all places) ... big flash, don't remember a distinct "boom" but it was likely at exactly the same time; all the cabin lights flickered and then went out for 3-4 seconds; captain came on the PA a minute or so later and confirmed the lightning strike ... I really can't recall that any of the pax got too panicky

the other aspect of this flight that has stuck with me -- none too fondly -- for all these years is that they served individual cans of wine in Y

Well, you mentioned watching those lightning from a distance can be a distraction. I said you can only watch lightning from a distance because of airline regulation. Two different things. In any case, you can pull down the window shades. Not to mention putting on those sleep masks over your eyes. That usually does the trick ;)..unless the lightning is really up close and personal like your experience in 1985. And I think the passengers' reaction was correct, like I said, lightning strikes on planes are a regular events which they are designed for. But like you said, for the average passenger, those up close and personal lightning on planes is the exception rather than the rule.

Now apart from the "usual" lightnings, thunderstorms can also produce more powerful and potentially dangerous types of lightnings, but unless the plane fly inside the storm itself, the chance is relatively low for a plane to be hit by those more exotic type of lightnings. And as I said, airlines as SOP avoid flying into thunderstorms of all kind (single cell, multi-cell, supercell etc), so those should not be a concern for the passengers.

obviously I neglected to put the ":D" after "a real distraction from trying to sleep" because I would actually much rather watch the storm activity!

At night maybe you can see lightning for 200 miles from a thunderstorm. That's less than a half hour at cruising speed.

DFW is a good one. I remember flying an evening DFW-RNO flight with lightning on the starbaord side for a good 2 hours.

I am by no means a nervous flyer and bad turbulence doesn't phase me, but I'm pretty sure if that happened to me while on a plane, I would need a change of pants.

Go for the black:

http://www.lightningsafety.com/nlsi_...maps/world.jpg