Icing Airmets

I've been watching the icing airmets for some time now, and it seems
to be getting more and more conservative to the point of being
unrealistic. For example, right now the freezing level is at 5000 ft,
MEA is at 2500 ft, yet we have an airmet Z that goes all way from SFC
to 18k. How could you possibly justify such an airmet? Even though the
conditions appear to be quite good for an IFR training flight, we
still have to cancel the flight because we don't want to teach the
students that airmets can be ignored. Yet I am at a loss to explain to
them why there is an airmet when the ingredients for icing is just not
there.

The ADDS icing potential charts appear to be more realistic, but they
warn you that it supplements the Airmet and should not be used as a
substitute for icing intensity.


Any thoughts?