Last night was a rough night of aviation. i took a student on an inst. x-country from SMO to MRY, in IMC. The flight there was absolutely beautiful. IMC almost the whole way. the layer started at about 6500 and went all the way up to about fl250 (according to the wx reports). It got a little rough towards monteray, but nothing too bad. we stoped a MRY for some dinner at the Golden Tee (i think that was the name). A burger was freakin 10 bucks! and it tasted like a 3 dollar burger. oh well. so we looked at the weather for the return trip. freezing level where we were was about 12k, AND IT WAS DEAD WRONG! we daparteed and were almost immediatly in the soup. about 500AGL or so. he (student) is almost ready for his chek ride, or so i thought. we got into some moderate turbulence, and he was fighting the airplane. to me, flying in those conditions is more about riding it than fighting it. anyway we got to about 7k and the temp was down to 4c. we filed for 9k. at 8.3k the temp was down to 2c. at 9k it was at 1c. just above freezing, in rainy IMC (you know, the stuff we sim pilots live for). but here is the clincher. it was a 172, with a brand new engine(so be easy on it), in the rain, in imc, near freezing, and we were getting blown from 9200 to 8400 for about 35 minutes. he finally said he couldent do it anymore and turned over the controls. i was at Vy (about 73kts with a gs of 55/57 kts) just to hold altitude. i kept checking the wings/windsheild/wingstruts/tires for ice and saw none, but my gut told me we had picked some up. finally there it was. ICE at the base of the windshield and leading edge of the tires. i looked at the OAT and it was -1c. "OAKLAND center, cessna 83AF, were picking up ice, request 7k." "83af descent approved, do you require any assistance?" "negative center, just need to get down to warmer temps." so we started a descent. as we got farther along, and lower down, the temp wasnt going up, finally at about 7600 the temp went back up to 1c. still to close to freezing for me, but the MEA for that route was 7k. after about another 15 minutes of +1c, and rain, it had finally started clearing up some. the rain had quit, and the temp was on the rise. it peaked at 4c. one more look at the windsheild and wings revealed that the ices was gone, and we were between layers. now it was time to go back to 9k to clear the range on the way back. the rest of the flight was unevenfull. but what an experince. the student pilot said he was sweating bullets, and I was to quite frankly(but i never revealed it to him). in hind sight, the right decision may have been to turn back, but when we got down to a warmer temp, i was happy with it. no more ice accumlating on stuff, and what was there was mealting. was it fun, definatly. its good to see your limits every once in a while.
the moral of the story, dont always trust the WX you read. it may just be wrong (for the worse). id rather be on the ground wishing i was flying than in the air wishing i was on the ground!