i recently came off a Southwest flight last week from manchester nh to phoenix. we encountered mountain wake turbulence over the rockies. this is a pretty normal phenomenon and i fly boston to san jose constantly. i would tell you that this turbulence was the worst i have ever encountered in 12 year of flying. there was nothing normal about it. the flight attendants were nearly in tears. this plane not only lost altitude quickly but dove to the left and to the right and shimmied left and right on a horizontal axis. when we landed the pilot talked about what had happened and while scary we were never in any danger. i would advice anyone who reads this site to search for mountain wave turbulence and rotor clouds. oh and the pilot indicated that it was the fault of the new controller during shift turnover. the controller leaving didn't update the new guy on the turbulence reports in the area.
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