Be careful out there

I know I have posted a good bit on not using ADS-B/XM tactically but I am not sure the message has really sunk in.  Typically green and yellow on XM are safe to fly through if that's what they really are.  Today I was out shooting some approaches and the rain was building.  I had the XM on the 750xi and the live radar on the 500txi.  While being vectored for the GPS 13 SGJ we first were pointed at some weather that was mostly green with a few yellow spots on XM but it was painting a solid red core.   I was about to ask for a turn when the controller headed me North West towards ORSOF.  

You can see in the picture above just North and West of ORSOF there is a small but strong cell.  I was tilted up 6 degrees so none of this is ground clutter.  Also my radar does not display within 5 nm on the 40 nm scale so what you are seeing is clipped at the white ring.  We turned to avoid this and though we were mostly IMC, got a look at it.  It was raining but it would be hard to tell that the core was that intense.  Given its size I doubt it would have been really bad but I am thinking it was not a ride I wanted to take.

The XM picture is above.  It looks mostly benign and many would have no issue going through based upon the colors.  The rain was not moving much so this lag was less positional and more intensity but position is not the same.  These are cut from the same picture just after my radar swept so really the same instant.  On radar (and our eyes) the storm is more to the top right of ORSOF, not to the right as shown in the lower picture.  So if you tried to deviate based upon XM you actually might run right through the core.  As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus used to say, Let's all be careful out there.