Turbulence
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"Please buckle your seat belts and stay in your seat," That's a familiar pilot instruction to passengers in an airplane experiencing air turbulence. Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is The Weather Notebook.

Those bumps in the air can occur at any time of the year but, as Jessica Lockhart reports, summer heat can make the bumpsŠwell, a little bit bumpier!

Flying in airplanes can be a thrilling experience especially if your plane is taking the same route as a summer storm. While pilots can avoid traveling where bad weather is seen on doplar radar, sometimes there is turbulence that is seemingly invisible. Greg Zielinski, Maine's State Climatologist believes that climate has two roles in creating the undectable kind of turbulence.

If you have hot weather over the land, convective air rises and with that you induce pockets where planes are going to bounce around and the other point is the frequency of storms. When you have contrasting wind directions that will also give you turbulence in the air.

Most people expect to encounter a bumpy ride when flying through clouds. But this summer related turbulence is different, it's the kind that makes you grab your seat white-knuckled, where you feel like you're on suddenly on a roller coaster rather then a plane. Zielinski says this happens typically when a summer thunderstorm is near the path of a plane.

When the upper level winds are fast that is the jetsteam so if you have a thunderstorm building plus the jetstream being fast you're adding another wind direction into the whole mix.

Another complication for flying smoothly is the amount of airline traffic up in the skies. Summer is a busy season for airlines.

The more flights you have the more jets you have zipping around up there, the jets themselves disturb the air, if you're behind another jet,they can cause turbulence for the plane you are in.

Best bet, when flying on rainy days stay buckle up.

Thanks today to Jessica Lockhart of Portland, Maine. The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory and supported by the National Science Foundation. Check out more on turbulance and the weather at www.weathernotebook.org.