GF,
Remember that your radar can't paint the tops of the clouds; when you look to see what's there, you're not seeing what's there.
Someone I know destroyed both engines on a weather research airplane just a few years ago He caught the tip of something around 35,000 or so, in the dark. He was painting down and contrasting it against the terrain. A zero tilt check showed nothing ahead. he intended to overfly the cell for some tops measurements with the onboard sensors and probes, then drop down and start working around some of the upcoming towers feeding into it.
His last words, reported to me, were "let's see what this one's got." He wasn't killed, though his employer certainly thought about it. What was in there was very large hail, and it hammered the airplane severely...breaking fan blades, crushing spinners, crushing nacelle leading edges and wing leading edges, shattering the radome, etc. Overflying the cell can be a risky thing to do, especially one that tall. What's visible in the cell is only part of the picture.
A very general rule of overflight is that you should stay at least 1,000 above the cell tops for every ten knots of wind at your altitude. If you have 70 knots of wind, you need an additional 7,000 above that cell. Any cell above 30-35,000' should be considered severe, regardless of the location, and treated accordingly. Don't think simply because it's found in the ITCZ or a subtropical location, that it lacks energy; that could be a fatal mistake.
I've been monitoring weather closely in the middle east, just lately, and not long ago saw some severe weather putting out 1" hail (in, of all locations, a place called "hail."). You might be surprised what pops up when you least expect it.