Crossword Genius

Intermittently fine, but regularly early on parade (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

showery

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'intermittently fine' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are adjectives. Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?

'regularly early on parade' is the wordplay.
'regularly' indicates alternate letters (regularly take one letter, leave next etc.).
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'parade' becomes 'show' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
The alternate letters of 'early' are 'ery'.
'ery' put after 'show' is 'SHOWERY'.

'but' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for showery that I've seen before include "Raining intermittently" , "Like many British days" , "far from fine" , "Wet" , "some rain" .)

I've seen this clue in The Times.
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