Several of today's newspapers claim to have seen a private document from the Met Office that was sent to television forecasters with suggestions for improving weather bulletins.
The interpretation of the Met Office guidelines in all of the papers is that the national weather centre is seeking to make weather reports more "positive" (The Times) or "uplifting" (The Telegraph).
The Star splashes on the story with the headline "Balmy" and reports: "Weather girls told ALL forecasts MUST be sunny to cheer us up ... even when it snows."
It's a fun story but the Met Office, which declines to make the document public, feels the newspapers have misrepresented the meaning of the guidelines.
A spokesman for the Met Office says: "The guidelines were not about asking forecasters to give a more positive spin to their bulletins. What they suggest is that forecasters should try and make the reports relevant for the greatest amount of people across the lion's share of the country.
"For example, if it rains overnight in Glasgow, and most of the rest of the country is dry, then the bulletin should focus on the weather being dry."
The Met spokesman adds: "What is good and bad weather? It's subjective. Some people might not want it to rain, but farmers might be hoping for rainfall for their crops."
But it's good to see the Met Office is taking what it sees as "misrepresentative" newspaper reports in good humour. The Times adorns its report with a big photograph of Caroline Aherne's European weather forecaster character in the Fast Show who describes all weather as "scorchio".
"We thought that was quite funny," the Met Office spokesman says.
