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With Florida's rainy season back upon us, I wanted to get some other opinions on what people use as their flying criteria in the summer. The vast majority of my travel is between Orlando and Miami, departing in the morning and coming back in the afternoon. Obviously this return trip puts me in the prime time for afternoon thunderstorms. My travel schedule is very flexible most of the time, so I can adjust my travel days to line up with what the weather is saying and avoid the known bad days. Lately I have developed a rather irrational fear of getting caught up in a thunderstorm and coming out the bottom as a non-flying hunk of metal. I think it really took hold when the PC-12 went down last year near Ocala with what was first attributed to an unsuccessful encounter with a thunderstorm (which has since been revised to bad flying when the autopilot disconnected for some reason - a topic unto itself). I say it is irrational because it becomes almost paralyzing (flying-wise) at times. I understand the importance of good risk management and use ADS-B weather enroute, so its not that I feel I'm flying by the seat of my pants. So my questions to others are: 1) How do you use the information available to you to determine the thunderstorm risks when you are 8-10 hours out of taking a flight (or a return flight). 2) Do you let the normal afternoon patterns in Florida deter you from flying in the summer? I am not talking about tropical disturbances or anything like that. I have found that over the past 3 years my summer flying drops off considerably and I think it is subconsciously (and now consciously) the thunderstorm issue. 3) Have you found yourself in a thunderstorm before? If so, how did you get yourself in it and what did you learn from the experience? 4) Do you feel confident that ATC in Florida has the understanding and equipment to keep you out of thunderstorms?