Some mentor, long ago, explained aviation weather to me: “There are two kinds of weather you never want to fly in no matter the aircraft,” he said. “Icing and thunderstorms.” He wasn’t wrong. But until we gain some experience, sometimes it’s hard to tell when we’ve gotten too close to either weather situation. Put another way, it’s hard to know where the line is until we cross it.
For example, it’s easy to say we should stay 20 miles from a mature thunderstorm, but it’s harder to determine what “mature” means. And it means different things in different areas of the U.S. and around the world. Make no mistake: Flying into any thunderstorm is a bad idea. But it’s also common to skirt the edges of one while remaining in visual conditions.
