For what it's worth

A few years back, the typical TV weather forecast involved dividing the country up into three or four zones, and describing the weather for each zone.

Where I live - in the Derbyshire Dales - always seemed to be on the join between two completely different forecasts.

So the BBC's web-based forecasts should have been brilliant for us. And often they are. But today I hit a contrast that I cannot explain - and given that the BBC's complaints system doesn't allow uploading of images, I am using this page to illustrate the problem.

At 0651 on Thursday 27th March 2008, this is what the five-day forecast for Derby looked like this:



Thursday looks pretty dreadful, so give up on the plans for a day's walking.
















But hang on, let's just check the 24-hour forecast - displayed at exactly the same time - for Derby:


Now, that looks better. In fact, that looks completely different.

I acknowledge that summarising can be difficult (do you show the average, best or worst of a very variable day?) - but in this case, the options would be to show "cloudy" or "sunny intervals".

Would any reasonable person summarise this as "Heavy Showers"?

I am asking BBC weather to comment, and will copy their response here.