We present a numerical formulation to compute optical parameters in a turbulent air flow. The basic numerical formulation is a large eddy simulation (LES) of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations, which are approximated using a finite element method. From the time evolution of the flow parameters we describe how to compute statistics of the flow variables and, from them, the parameters that determine the quality of the visibility. The methodology is applied to estimate the optical quality around telescope enclosures.