Narrative:

Climbing through FL380; we observed significant wing tip vortices and wake turbulence approaching our flight path. Anticipating possible aircraft upset I quickly turned off course to avoid; but did not have time to notify ATC until after initiating the turn. ATC called us to inquire about the turn as we were about to notify them. We turned back on course after avoiding the wake turbulence.initially we believed we were going to avoid the wake turbulence; but it quickly moved towards our flight path. I should have been more conservative and requested a turn from ATC earlier to avoid even the possibility of encountering the wake turbulence.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737-700 Captain reported a track deviation occurred when he turned to avoid visible indications of wake turbulence; which did not allow enough time to coordinate with ATC.

Narrative: Climbing through FL380; we observed significant wing tip vortices and wake turbulence approaching our flight path. Anticipating possible aircraft upset I quickly turned off course to avoid; but did not have time to notify ATC until after initiating the turn. ATC called us to inquire about the turn as we were about to notify them. We turned back on course after avoiding the wake turbulence.Initially we believed we were going to avoid the wake turbulence; but it quickly moved towards our flight path. I should have been more conservative and requested a turn from ATC earlier to avoid even the possibility of encountering the wake turbulence.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.