Thunderstorms at MCO

[nkereina]

Just curious how thunderstorms with rain, wind, and lightning impact air travel at MCO. Will they delay flights for this? Has this happened to anyone? We've been concerned with snow storms potentially delaying us, but never gave thought to thunderstorms. Thanks in advance!

 

[rwdavis2]

I would not worry. If it's bad enough there will be delays. There's nothing you can do about it.

 

[nkereina]

I would not worry. If it's bad enough there will be delays. There's nothing you can do about it.

I understand. I was just looking for experiences. I know thunderstorms are frequent there, so just curious if it frequently impacts flights or if that's a rare occurrence.

 

[WishICouldSpeakWhale]

We like to fly home from Disney in the afternoon because we don't like to get up early on departure day. I can't tell you how much time I've spent sitting on the tarmac waiting out an afternoon thunderstorm so that we can take off. The good news is that most of the time, the thunderstorms are fairly brief and we get going quickly enough - maybe 15 minutes - it just seems longer when you are sitting on a plane that is not moving.

 

[AngiTN]

In all our flights we have never been delayed by a storm at MCO, they move pretty quick so the window for delay is pretty short (for a plane). Where they really can impact things the most is they can delay luggage quite a bit as the handlers will be stopped for lightening much longer than planes are

 

[rwdavis2]

I thought of something more relevant. Our daughter left Orlando during a thunderstorm a couple years ago and almost everyone's luggage got soaked before being loaded. I mean totally drenched and soaked through. The ground crew must have had to go inside during the lightening.

So protect anything sensitive to water.

 

[sponica]

I've definitely been at MCO during a full ground stop for thunder/lightning, the worst part was they rushed us all on to board the plane in the hopes of taking off before the storms got there. So we sat on a plane for what felt like an eternity during the ground stop and then had to wait for all the luggage to load and fuel to be loaded.

But that also happened to me at newport news VA....so it's not like it's specific to MCO.

 

[nkereina]

Thanks all!

I thought of something more relevant. Our daughter left Orlando during a thunderstorm a couple years ago and almost everyone's luggage got soaked before being loaded. I mean totally drenched and soaked through. The ground crew must have had to go inside during the lightening.

So protect anything sensitive to water.

Great point, thanks for the tip!

 

[maxiesmom]

I understand. I was just looking for experiences. I know thunderstorms are frequent there, so just curious if it frequently impacts flights or if that's a rare occurrence.

A few months ago my sister was held on the tarmac after they landed due to a thunderstorm. But in Orlando they typically blow by quickly.

 

[JimMIA]

You're probably more likely to be delayed by weather elsewhere than by a storm at MCO. Bad weather anywhere can affect your aircraft coming into MCO on time.

I've had many more delays for that reason than weather right where I was at the moment.

 

[Nebraska_Disney]

What is nice about MCO is that they have the ability to take off/land on the multitude of runways they have. I have more than once took off to the east and had the plane go around the storms developing to the west. Many times, they are able to do this with hardly a hiccup in the operations until it is right on top of the airport.

 

[sam_gordon]

What is nice about MCO is that they have the ability to take off/land on the multitude of runways they have. I have more than once took off to the east and had the plane go around the storms developing to the west. Many times, they are able to do this with hardly a hiccup in the operations until it is right on top of the airport.

MCO's runways are north/south.

 

[Nebraska_Disney]

MCO's runways are north/south.

My bad, I had thought they had some which were not. We must have taken off and veered away from the storms.

 

[sam_gordon]

No problem. I was just poking a little fun (why I included the smilie).

 

[kandb]

We flew into MCO once at around 5pm. Thunderstorms came in after we landed (worker told me all flights after us were diverted to tampa). We landed with no problems but had to wait almost 2 hours to get our luggage at luggage pick up. We rented a car and were not doing DME, so it was quite a wait. PS-this was in August.

 

[OKW Lover]

We live in Orlando and fly in/out of MCO very frequently. Unless a storm is right over the airport things go along pretty normally. If you're flying soon, be aware that this is typically the dry season and thunderstorms aren't frequent now. Having said that, there are thunderstorms in the forecast for later today. We will see.... As we get more towards May then the daily afternoon thunderstorm becomes more the norm.

In the case of lightning nearby however all ramp workers (luggage, catering, etc) are brought in to shelter and not allowed out on the tarmac until 20 minutes after the last lightning strike. That has the potential to delay planes but its usually not a problem. It happened to us once out of probably 40 flights in 4 years.

 

[AquamarineSteph]

I thought of something more relevant. Our daughter left Orlando during a thunderstorm a couple years ago and almost everyone's luggage got soaked before being loaded. I mean totally drenched and soaked through. The ground crew must have had to go inside during the lightening.

So protect anything sensitive to water.

This can happen at a lot of airports, so if traveling with soft sided luggage pack like colors together. ;-) (What we do as well is to line the insides of soft sided luggage with a plastic garbage bag. It's not perfect? But it does cut down on the amount of water soaking through if the bags have to be left on the tarmac while a storm is in progress.)

 

[NotUrsula]

Yes, they will often do brief ground stops for electrical storms, as they can interfere with the operation of radar equipment, aside from the safety issue with the ground crews. It's actually more common for severe thunderstorms and tornadic activity to cause ground-stops than for snowstorms to do it; it happens all over the country. On Xmas Day 2006 we had the unique experience of riding out a near-miss from an F2 tornado in a 737 on a taxiway at MCO; that was fun

If you want to know all about what happens at airports during electrical storm delays, I would recommend reading the Chicago Tribune's Pulitzer-Prize winning 4-part feature series about one such incident at O'Hare. Note that this is a description of weather events that happened on September 11, 2000; one full year before the 9-11 attacks. http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/staff-49

 

[LizzyS]

I thought of something more relevant. Our daughter left Orlando during a thunderstorm a couple years ago and almost everyone's luggage got soaked before being loaded. I mean totally drenched and soaked through. The ground crew must have had to go inside during the lightening.

So protect anything sensitive to water.

Good point! My luggage got pretty wet once when it was going through Atlanta during some enduring rain as that's where our layover was.