I had planned to spend last weekend in Glasgow, Scotland - a colleague who had been very good to me was retiring, big party etc...
The plan was from Plymouth to Cumbernauld with an ETA at around 1730 LCL, hotel + transport booked, eager newly qualified PPL friend coming along for the "experience".
If Cumbernauld had been on the other side of the trough (that caught the Lance in the Cairngorms earlier in the day) in relatively ice-free air then I probably would have gone and taken the small chance of an engine failure while crossing over the tops, as IO540 states, this is the essence of IFR . However, by the time I was due to arrive there the trough had passed further South and the worst weather was right around my destination options.
As Cumbernauld has no Instrument procedure I could have gone to Glasgow or Prestwick if things looked impossible for a visual approach when I got up to the central belt, but by that time I would have descended from clear air (say Fl100-FL160) to be at a couple of thousand feet looking around for an 800m tarmac strip in freezing conditions (while being tossed around in a strong blustery wind, chunks of ice being flung off the prop, having to deice the windscreen every couple of minutes and unable to extend my speedbrakes (not advisable in icing conditions) and even with my TKS deicing I may not have been able to climb to accept arrival instructions for Glasgow. Even going straight for Glasgow or Prestwick from the outset would have had its risks.
Options diminish very rapidly in weather as poor as this.
Crossing over the top of it is one level of risk but ascending or descending through it, even with deicing and O2 puts a whole different perspective on things.
I didn't go.
As somebody already commented early in the thread, Saturday was not a day for flying light aircraft in Scotland.
RIP,
SB