On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 14:03:34 +0100, "Ian Currie"
wrote:

Thanks Julian. Incidentally I received a two page letter from a chap who
read one of my forecasts a couple of years ago in which I had stated the
Weekend will have good weather- dry sunny and warm. The two pages consisted
of reasons why he likes cool, wet and cloudy conditions in summer and top of
his list was "less barbecue smoke wafting over his garden".
I was praying for rain at the end of his letter.

Hehe, that's how I feel about barbecues, too. Grrr!!!

I think the thing about hazy sunshine is that most people focus on the
result not the cause. If the sun is indistinct and the sunshine is
weak, to most people that is hazy sunshine. I think the cause (thin
high cloud, smoke, haze or mist) is irrelevant to the layman and some
forecasters have recognised this since at least the 1960s. It's not
always possible to tell which is which anyway - when the sun is low on
the horizon.

As long as weather presenters remember their intended audience, I
don't see a real problem. However, it is essential for them to
differentiate between "hazy" and "hazy sunshine", even to the layman..
The former should always indicate the presence of impaired visibility
whereas the latter may not (rightly or wrongly, in modern usage).

--
Dave