Moderate Turbulence in IMC

This took place out over the gulf off the coast of Florida. There was a slight overcast ceiling that I climbed through on departure. Skies were clear with a couple puffs of cloud out ahead of me. I was not comfortable with the predictability of the weather and requested to ATC that they keep me over land in case conditions worsened. I should have been more firm. Just before entering this cloud, I get an excited warning from the controller to "expect moderate to severe precipitation for the next six miles."

What you're seeing is the lowest of clouds inside of a "cloud canyon" that developed around me. You can't really tell by the video, but the turbulence was bad enough that I had to reset my DG upon exit and I ended up getting turned 115 degrees or so in those few seconds. I'm fortunate that the turn did not put me into one of the enormous buildups that were developing around me.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• PA28
• Piper
• Cherokee
• Archer
• IMC
• IFR
• Turbulence