Hazelnuts39
I appreciate your efforts in answering the max g available question.
It certainly helps if one opens the graphic to see the whole thing.
Regarding the weather conditions:
The initial BEA report stated:
Though the analysis of the imagery leads one to think that, towards 2 h 00, the cumulonimbi forming this cluster had mostly already reached their stage of maturity, it is highly probable that some were the site of notable turbulence at FL350. There is a possibility of significant electrical activity at the flight level, but the presence of super cooled water at FL350 is not very probable and would necessarily have been limited to small quantities.
The second BEA report stated:
1.7.3 Meteorological Analyses
The additional analyses on the meteorological situation in the accident zone, based on the study of the observations made at 2 h 30 UTC by the Tropical Rain Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite, are included in appendix 3. Though the TRMM lightning imager indicates an absence of lightning in the accident zone at 2 h 30 UTC, the infrared image taken at the same time is consistent with those of Meteosat 9: taken together, this information does not make it possible to conclude that there was a sudden and exceptionally intense development of the convective activity between 2 h 07 and 2 h 30 UTC. Analysis of the observations by the TRMM TMI instrument, the only one operating in the microwave area, indicates the presence of strong condensation around 10,000 metres altitude, lower than the altitude of the cumulonimbus tops. This strong condensation would correspond to convective towers active at this altitude, which confirms the strong probability of notable turbulence within the convective cluster that was crossed by planned flight path of flight AF447.
I am not sure we can make reliable conclusions about the level of turbulence AF447 may have encountered. It is probably highly relevant that AF447 was lost in an active area along the ITCZ, but whether the relevance is pitot icing or turbulence or both or even some other factor is unknown at this time. We can only wonder why they did not see the necessity of altering course as aircraft in front of and behind them did in the ITCZ portion of their routes.
Svarin, It may be a day or two before I get back to your response, but I appreciate the effort you have made to be explicit.