A good low cost solution if skew-t logs, ruc soundings etc sound a little daunting.
If you have a small budget available, I would strongly suggest subscribing to rocket route.
The level of information they now supply with their briefing packs is first class and rivals what you might expect to receive from a professional flight planning organization.
If you have an Ipad, then for a small subscription, you can gain access to AeroPlus Weather which is a fantastic resource and uses the temp/lapse rates etc to draw a profile showing clouds/tops/layers etc and also shows sat radars, sigwx charts etc.
A combination of those two really will give you pretty much everything you could realistically need.
Dont be put off by paying a few quid for a better level of information as when you weigh up the cost against making an uninformed decision, it doesnt bear thinking about.
Icing very likely brings down more aircraft than any other single factor and those words come from Nasa so dont take my word for it.
Also worth bearing in mind that its a really good point to check your de-icing/anti-icing equipment whilst your still in clear air or even better, still on the ground.
They can also fail in flight, and its essential to recognise when something goes wrong without too much delay.
Here one I made earlier en route to China.
Fortunately I was over the UK at the point of failure.
