Narrative:

While in cruise flight; I saw an area of weather located from my 12 to 3 o'clock position and before I was close; asked for a deviation to the south; and I was granted deviations south of course direct when able. Before I could turn south; I entered an area of severe turbulence with the first bump leaving us hanging in our seat belts and the second bump knocking my headset off and it ending up in the back seat. At that point the ahrs on the G1000 X'd out and I was forced to the backup instruments which include an attitude indicator; airspeed and altimeter. I pulled the power back as not to over speed the aircraft and get back to maneuvering speed but I did not have time to look at the compass or the altimeter as I was concentrating on keeping the wings level. As the turbulence started to lighten up; I was able to look at the mfd and turn the aircraft to the south in an effort to exit the leading edge of the weather. Several minutes later; I was able to exit the extreme turbulence and find my head set at which point ATC was calling me and requesting that I climb back to 8000 feet; which I asked not to so as not to re-enter the clouds again. Through the last few minutes of the turbulence; the ahrs came back on line and the flight continued without any further issues. The problem arose from mis-judging the speed of the approaching weather front. Corrective action - slowing the aircraft down and maintaining a wings level attitude.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: SR22T pilot reported an altitude excursion resulted when he encountered severe turbulence from nearby convective activity.

Narrative: While in cruise flight; I saw an area of weather located from my 12 to 3 o'clock position and before I was close; asked for a deviation to the south; and I was granted deviations south of course direct when able. Before I could turn south; I entered an area of severe turbulence with the first bump leaving us hanging in our seat belts and the second bump knocking my headset off and it ending up in the back seat. At that point the AHRS on the G1000 X'd out and I was forced to the backup instruments which include an attitude indicator; airspeed and altimeter. I pulled the power back as not to over speed the aircraft and get back to maneuvering speed but I did not have time to look at the compass or the altimeter as I was concentrating on keeping the wings level. As the turbulence started to lighten up; I was able to look at the MFD and turn the aircraft to the south in an effort to exit the leading edge of the weather. Several minutes later; I was able to exit the extreme turbulence and find my head set at which point ATC was calling me and requesting that I climb back to 8000 feet; which I asked not to so as not to re-enter the clouds again. Through the last few minutes of the turbulence; the AHRS came back on line and the flight continued without any further issues. The problem arose from mis-judging the speed of the approaching weather front. Corrective action - slowing the aircraft down and maintaining a wings level attitude.

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.