Flying in the Southeast, including the southern Appalachian Mountains and the Tennessee Valley during the warm season, carries with it different weather challenges than what you would experience in the spring. The good news is that on any given day, airframe icing is much less common given the freezing level is often hanging around the mid-to-upper teens at this time. Supercooled liquid water and the threat of airframe icing still exists, but it is most often associated with deep, moist convection and thunderstorms, which we diligently try to avoid anyway.
Another benefit of summertime in this region is that frontal system passages are few and far between as the fast-flowing jet stream has been steadily migrating north into Canada throughout the spring and early summer. That leaves behind light westerly winds aloft or what meteorologists call zonal flow. Consequently, mountain wave activity takes a back seat in the southern and central Appalachians as instability near the surface ushers in thermal turbulence that most pilots must endure during the afternoon and early evening hours.
