"AliCat" wrote in news:bjqbgd$m8t60$1@ID-
Back in 1998, Bert Vaux, Assistant Professor of
Linguistics at Harvard, asked members of the
LINGUIST List about expressions for this weather
phenomenon (he called it a sunshower, a lovely
name, which I’ve never heard but which I’m told is
common in the US, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand, and also in parts of Britain,
though—oddly enough—it appears in few
dictionaries).

I know it is common in Scotland but have never heard the term in the
US or Canada.

Tufts