Atmospheric stability and lapse rate

On Tue, 8 Feb 2005 12:25:34 -0500, "Icebound"
wrote:

If we had a real good understanding of all aspects of meteorology, we could
recognize the situations in which forecasting should be relatively "easy",
and the situation is which it is more "difficult".... therefore the
situation in which we can take the TAF as gospel, and the situation in which
it is likely to be suspect.

Can you give me a realistic example of how knowing exactly what the
definition of lapse rate is would help a pilot flying from point A to
point B?

Forgive me, I'm just trying to understand why the FAA considers this
so important that it is put on the written. I've never heard of
anyone calculating the lapse rate for a flight. Even if they did, it
seems to me that this rate could easily be different from one point to
the next throughout the flight.

I understand the need to be thorough when flight planning but I don't
get how to use this particular knowledge.

Thanks, Corky Scott