Weather Decision Making

[av8trflying]

Gents

I would like to pose a question regarding flying in bad weather. Currently I am a VFR pilot who is about to sit the MECIR test. I am a low hour pilot and as such would like to find out your opinions from personal experience.

The following weather brief is from the inflight breakup accident last year.

Please Note: I do not want this thread to turn into “what was done right what was done wrong” etc. with regards to that accident. I don’t want any debate on this accident at all. I am only using this weather forecast as an example to see what ‘you’ would do when reading a forecast such as this. Due to the fact I have not flown in conditions such as these I would like some advice so that when the time comes I am able to make better decisions for myself.

So my questions are these: Would you fly in the area with this forecast? Would you wait on the ground and wait till the forecast is better? Would you divert around the area and take the long way around? What would your thought processes be when reading this forecast?

Thanks for your input guys.

Weather
A Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) forecast for Areas 30 and 324, valid for a 12-hour period from 1500, indicated strong and gusty northerly winds to prevail ahead of the passage of a cold front. North to north-westerly winds of 40 kts up to an altitude of 10,000 ft were forecast. Severe turbulence and mountain wave activity were expected as a result of the vigorous northerly flow. The front was not forecast to pass through the area until 0300 the next morning. Isolated thunderstorms associated with the passage of the front were forecast over the sea, in the southern part of the forecast area. The freezing level was between 6,500 ft in the south-west, grading to 8,000 ft in the north-east.
A SIGMET5 (ML02), associated with the forecast, and valid from 1800, extended the validity of an earlier issued SIGMET (ML01) that forecast severe turbulence below 8,000 ft near and south of the ranges. Concurrently, another SIGMET (ML03), issued at 1727 and valid from 1800, warned of occasional severe mountain wave turbulence in the area between 5,000 ft and FL140, with intensity increasing.
Bureau of Meteorology forecasters advised that the existence of concurrent SIGMET information in the same area resulted from different meteorological phenomena associated with the strong wind. The first (ML02) warned of mechanical turbulence over and in the lee of the ranges and the second (ML03) warned of mountain wave activity within the air mass and covered a similar broadly defined area. The BoM advised that the existence of concurrent SIGMET warnings of turbulence could not necessarily be interpreted as having an accumulative affect in the overlapping areas and altitudes.
Two pilots flying other company Aero Commander aircraft landed at Essendon within the 30 minutes prior to the departure of YJB for Shepparton. Neither pilot reported encountering any significant turbulence except on final approach. Pilots arriving or departing from the Melbourne area at the time of the accident reported actual wind speeds in excess of 40 kts, but none experienced any significant turbulence. The crew of a fixed-wing search aircraft reported that in the wreckage area, there was significant, continuous turbulence at altitudes between 5,000 and 6,400 ft during the search. They reported the cloud as broken (5 to 7 OKTAS6), between 3,500 and 6,000 ft.
Surface wind gusts to 50 kts were reported on the ranges during the afternoon. Residents living near the accident site reported very strong wind conditions, of the kind experienced on only a few occasions a year. They reported that at the time of the accident there was bright moonlight, even with the frequent cloud movement obscuring it. Conditions were reported as clear and there was no precipitation.