For a few years now, weather forecasters have been using the term "sharp showers" in their television and radio forecasts for the UK. Almost all UK weather forecasts get their information from The Meteoroloical Office ("the Met Office" for short), a department of the civil service paid for out of the defence budget.

I've never heard anyone use this phrase except in a weather forecast, so have always wondered what it meant. At a guess, I thought it's something to do with onset and duration, rather than how point or razor-like the raindrops are, but in common public parlance, people use words like sudden, heavy, drizzle, downpour, torrential, fine, thundery, etc. to describe rain, not sharp. It rains quite a lot in the UK, so we have lots of words for different types of rain, hallowed through long use, so I wondered where this comparatively new phrase meant. No lay people I spoke seemed have a definite idea what it meant, and I could find no definition anywhere in the Met Office output.

Back in 2008, I sent the Met Office an email asking what the term meant, but heard nothing back.

I have left the question posted on several public websites and discussion forums, asking if anybody knew what the Met Office meant by the term, to no avail.

Today I phoned their public enquiries line and asked again, and I've finally got an answer.

"Sharp showers" is not an officially defined Met Office term, but the enquiry desk term think it means "sudden heavy showers", which pretty much everyone understands.

<<PAUSE FOR RAPTUROUS APPLAUSE>>

Given that most of their media forecasts are necessarily very brief, I can see why they have saved three precious syllables and begun using "sharp" instead of "sudden heavy". But whenever they did, I missed the memo explaining it. Mainly because, I suspect, it was never written.