Dave Smith wrote:

> Default User wrote:
> > > The handy thing about the metric scale is that 0 is the freezing
> > > point.

> > If you're doing physics problems, it's great. Not so much for
> > weather.
>
> I already explained why I like it for weather. The freezing point
> makes a major difference in winter, due to the amount of heat
> required to cause a change of state.

Not really. The state changes are significant for physics problems,
only marginally for weather. Being at 32F/0C ambient says little about
whether there will be or not be frozen precipitation, or what will
happen to that if it falls. Upper atmosphere temps and ground temps
rule that. Ground-level ambient temps are mostly of interest to the
person walking about in them. In that case 0C == freezing is not all
that significant.

Further, you've lost 100 as anything useful at all. Fahrenheit nearly
bounds the typical range of temperatures experienced in the temperate
zones. Not exactly and it varies to a degree (no pun) with location,
but a reasonable approximation.

> In the metric system, everything
> positive is above freezing and everything below zero is freezing.

So? As I said, for the most part air temperatures are of interest for
how they feel to the people who are out in the open. That's why there's
such an interest in "wind-chill". Freezing or not doesn't matter all
that much.

> Just as you learn to identify comfort zones in the Imperial system,
> you also learn them for the metric equivalents. The problem that most
> people have is that they spend too much energy trying to convert
> instead of just dealing with the one system and think metric.

Few people in the US spend any time converting temperatures to C.




Brian

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