Narrative:

All remarks on flight plan to expect cdr's; where light to ocnl mdt turb will occur and wet rnwys planned in [destination airport]. [Aircraft] was cleared [to their destination] with thunderstorms on rte just south. On climbout sigmet for convt wx was sent up. 1 PIREP around FL340 for mod turb was around the area; the crew was flying FL370; so I did not send this up as well. Was a busy day on the desk with weather around most of my flights; so I needed to work on releases getting out; head was in sabre mostly. About 10 mins after sending up convt sigmet; taps was reporting from this aircraft light and then mod reports. These reports were being sent back to the aircraft. Looking at the history of this flight; in a period of 8 mins; 13 reports were sent to aircraft with last report being sev. As I was going thru all these messages as well; I saw the severity increase. When sev report was received; I sent a message to crew asking if pax and crew safe; any injuries. At that point; [the flight] was not on my [screen] any longer. I called [management] to let them know what was going on and that I have no further info as my ACARS was not responded to and now I did not have the aircraft on my screen. Then it popped back up as in descent. I sent the next message asking if they are [diverting] and eventually did get a reply that yes; and squawking 7700 with sev turb. I do feel there was a substantial wait and it was due to them weeding out unnecessary info feeding off their ACARS. This was a very time sensitive matter and did not appreciate all the needless 'chatter' feeding back to the plane that was the originator of the mod and sev taps reports. [The diversion airport] was -tsra in the metar on descent; but there was no time to deviate from captain's plan. All I could do was try to assist as best as possible. I gave them [another airport] as an alternate and sent up landing data; which was unnecessary as they were on final by the time all calls were made and landing data was available. Medical was requested; so was first call. Then [management]; then ATC coordinator. Mx and [operations] eventually called me as I could not be fast enough to make all calls and get diversion in. Neighbor did help; but this was such a fast scenario; that my own mind could not spit out directions fast enough for them to be totally useful. Plane landing in -tsra in [the diversion airport] safely. No injuries were reported; thank god; and crew talked with [duty manager] upon safe arrival into gate where more info was obtained. This flight did encounter sev turb and dropped 4;000 feet and the crew could not maintain airspeed. [Management] and chief did need to take flights off my desk. I had 25 flights. I was never able to catch back up and my main concern was the safety of my flights in air at that point.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier Dispatcher reported company aircraft encountered severe turbulence that resulted in a diversion.

Narrative: All remarks on flight plan to expect CDR's; where light to ocnl mdt turb will occur and wet rnwys planned in [destination airport]. [Aircraft] was cleared [to their destination] with thunderstorms on rte just south. On climbout sigmet for convt wx was sent up. 1 PIREP around FL340 for MOD turb was around the area; the crew was flying FL370; so I did not send this up as well. Was a busy day on the desk with weather around most of my flights; so I needed to work on releases getting out; head was in sabre mostly. About 10 mins after sending up convt sigmet; TAPS was reporting from this aircraft Light and then MOD reports. These reports were being sent back to the aircraft. Looking at the history of this flight; in a period of 8 mins; 13 reports were sent to aircraft with last report being SEV. As I was going thru all these messages as well; I saw the severity increase. When SEV report was received; I sent a message to crew asking if pax and crew safe; any injuries. At that point; [the flight] was not on my [screen] any longer. I called [management] to let them know what was going on and that I have no further info as my ACARS was not responded to and now I did not have the aircraft on my screen. Then it popped back up as in descent. I sent the next message asking if they are [diverting] and eventually did get a reply that yes; and squawking 7700 with SEV Turb. I do feel there was a substantial wait and it was due to them weeding out unnecessary info feeding off their ACARS. This was a very time sensitive matter and did not appreciate all the needless 'chatter' feeding back to the plane that was the originator of the MOD and SEV taps reports. [The diversion airport] was -TSRA in the METAR on descent; but there was no time to deviate from captain's plan. All I could do was try to assist as best as possible. I gave them [another airport] as an alternate and sent up landing data; which was unnecessary as they were on final by the time all calls were made and landing data was available. Medical was requested; so was first call. Then [management]; then ATC coordinator. MX and [Operations] eventually called me as I could not be fast enough to make all calls and get diversion in. Neighbor did help; but this was such a fast scenario; that my own mind could not spit out directions fast enough for them to be totally useful. Plane landing in -TSRA in [the diversion airport] safely. No injuries were reported; thank god; and crew talked with [Duty Manager] upon safe arrival into gate where more info was obtained. This flight did encounter SEV turb and dropped 4;000 feet and the crew could not maintain airspeed. [Management] and Chief did need to take flights off my desk. I had 25 flights. I was never able to catch back up and my main concern was the safety of my flights in air at that point.

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.