September 30, 2025, 11:34 am | Read time: 2 minutes
Most air travelers are familiar with this phenomenon: When a plane flies into a cloud, it shakes—sometimes gently, but often noticeably more. What’s behind this? TRAVELBOOK asked an expert.
There are clouds that seem so inconspicuous that it’s hard to imagine they could affect something as massive as an airplane. Yet even these so-called fair-weather clouds—cumulus clouds—can cause planes to experience slight turbulence. Aviation expert Heinrich Großbongardt explains this in a TRAVELBOOK interview. In this case, it’s already a matter of light turbulence. Such turbulence occurs, broadly speaking, whenever different air currents meet. But how exactly can clouds contribute to this shaking during flight?
Why Does the Plane Shake When It Flies Through Clouds?
“Many types of clouds form because warm air rises from the ground,” Großbongardt explains. He illustrates this with the image of a pot filled with water. When the stove is turned on, the water begins to heat from the bottom. Gradually, hot bubbles rise to the top, while cooler water sinks back down. This creates a constant up and down, a real bubbling in the pot.
The atmosphere behaves quite similarly: When the sun heats the ground intensely, warm air rises while cooler air sinks. This creates vertical air currents. When the rising, moist air condenses, clouds form—they are, so to speak, the visible sign that it’s “bubbling” in this area, to stick with the pot comparison. When a plane flies through such a zone, it is caught by the rising and falling air masses. The aircraft lifts and sinks intermittently. For passengers, it feels as if the plane is shaking or rocking—similar to a boat on choppy waters.
It “Bubbles” Especially in Tropical Thunderstorms
The aforementioned cumulus clouds cause at most a slight shaking, Großbongardt explains. However, it’s a different story with tropical thunderstorms. These are felt particularly strongly by everyone on board. “In thunderstorm clouds, the air rises at speeds of up to 200 kilometers per hour, and the next moment, there can be similarly strong downdrafts. The aircraft is shaken very strongly as a result,” the expert says. Pilots, therefore, always strive to fly around such zones widely. Not because the turbulence could damage the plane, but to spare passengers these strong jolts.