I got my IFR ticket about a year ago, but have had precious little opportunity to exercise it. This weekend, I got a pretty good dose of not only actual IMC, but also extensive rain and thunderstorm activity to navigate around.
My flights were from Houston to Lubbock on Friday and back today (Sunday). A frontal system has been stalled in central / southeastern Texas for the last few days, and there were extensive rainshowers and some thunderstorm activity across large sections of the south and eastern part of the state during both of my flights.
Having onboard ADSB weather with my iFly / SkyRadar combo was fantastic. On both days, I was able to make real-time diversions en route to avoid embedded t-storms and generally miss the heaviest areas of precipitation. It was also handy to have that radar view in front of me as ATC was offering their vision of the weather ahead and suggesting vectors.
Not only was the radar important, but the real-time METARs (and at-a-glance VFR / MVFR / IFR airport color codes) also made it very easy to understand my options for diverting to alternate airports, or know where my "out" was going to be if a gap in the storms closed up before I could get through and I needed to go to ground and wait for things to blow over.
I think I would have been far less likely to attempt the flights I made this weekend without that information at my fingertips in near real time. Certainly, I would have been far less confident in my ability to safely navigate.
As it was, my bird got a bath, but I got a smooth ride and the chance to log some actual IMC time in my log book!