Andrew Gideon wrote
So what was I seeing? Static discharges from thermals that could grow into
t-storms?

Yes, pretty much.

In this case, what are you avoiding? Clusters? Any "strikes"? What's your
threshold for "not that way"?

Depends on how much turbulence I'm willing to tolerate. If I avoid
all strikes, I never get anything worse than some light chop and
thermal activity. If I avoid only clusters of strikes, and ignore
individual dots, I've accepted some increase in risk, and also
accepted that I'm going to have light turbulence and some moderate
chop at times.

If I'm going for a weak spot in a line - an area with relatively
little clustering - I know I'm in for it. I won't do this kind of
penetration without some sort of RADAR service - either decent ATC
RADAR or following a RADAR-equipped light aircraft, preferably both.
At that point, I slow to Va-10, ask for a block altitude, and strap
in. At that point, I KNOW I'm in a convective area - I'm just
counting on RADAR to take me around the worst of it. I don't do this
when I can avoid it - it's kind of like flying single engine low IFR.
If everything works it will be OK, but do it long enough...

As a last resort, you can always switch to the short range mode and
steer away from any dots that how up in front of you. It works most
of the time, but realize that if you're doing that, you've already
screwed up.

BTW, when you write "RADAR" in making your comparisons here, are you
referring strictly to ATC RADAR? Or are you including airborn and/or
down/uploaded NEXRAD

Actually, NEXRAD is what ATC has these days, and yes, I'm talking
about airborne RADAR as well. By the time there is enough water being
suspended for airborne RADAR to see it - meaning distinguish it from
the surrounding non-convective light to moderate precip - it will show
up on a Stormscope in an obvious way.

See, the real challenge of using spherics (or RADAR) is not avoiding
weather. That's easy. Simply don't go anywhre you see strikes (or
returns). Unfortunately, that doesn't get you where you are going.
The challenge is to ignore the light/moderate turbulence (or precip)
but avoid the cells. That always requires some amount of judgment and
interpretation. How much clustering is acceptable? Depends on lots
of factors. It's never perfect. Unless you always turn away from the
first indication, you are eventually going to penetrate a cell - the
odds will eventually catch up with you. Of course the same is true of
flying single engine IFR.

Michael