Keep an eye out for bumps in the road… or their equivalent in the sky with Turbulenceforecast.com. The site offers tons of maps and forecasts of air turbulence across the world, but with a focus on U.S. flights. They also offer a (somewhat slow-moving) blog and some other very helpful links.
New to the site is our live turbulence map, which gives real time turbulence reports worldwide.
A great place to start to better inform yourself about potential turbulence on your flight is the potential trouble areas map and the pilot reports of turbulence map. For those of you who want more, many more turbulence and weather maps are available for viewing, all updated hourly. Have a safe flight.
This site is also accessible on mobile devices such as Blackberry.
Turbulence Forecast generates an index of turbulence for two regions, the US, and the whole world every hour. The index goes from 0-6, with zero meaning most flights are smooth, and 6 severe/extreme. Usually, the index is usually a 1-3, but today, due to significant jet stream and many reports, the index for the US has been hitting level 4. Fortunately, this is not a common event, but it does happen, oftentimes during the fall and winter due to the lowered jet stream. Reports of moderate to severe have been reported all day in the Western United States, near Colorado and the surrounding region. Buckle up.