On Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:11:33 -0000, "Will Hand"
wrote:

Old official definitions are that "changeable" should be used for the short
term, i.e. next 48 hours or so, whereas "unsettled" should only be used for
longer periods. Both mean the same thing.

I can see exactly the problem Nick has, Will - and with him, the
majority of the UK population. Terms like unsettled, changeable,
average, which are meaningful to professional and many amateur
meteorologists, are vague to most of the population, who just don't
know what they mean.

Windy, rainy, snowy, sunny - even "barbecue" lol, these are fine and
everyone knows what they mean. It's the in-between words that cause
the problem and the Met Office would get a lot less flak if they
carefully avoided them. If I may use an analogy - colours - it's like
the difference between blue, red, yellow, white, black - and
turquoise, mauve, purple and cyan. Some people would understand the
latter better if they were described as "blue-green" etc.

The Met Office really does need to say in more words than one exactly
what they mean, not rely on one-word "weather types" - simply because
many weather types just aren't well understood by the general
population (and media!)

Cheers, Dave