This week we have been receiving "severe weather" warnings which brought to my mind the differences in interpretation between the UK and USA.

Our severe weather warnings are about daytime temperatures down as low as -2 centigrade (around 28 fahrenheit) and of hazardous driving conditions caused by snowfalls of up to 3 centimetres (just over an inch).

During the summer, of course, we get sun exposure warnings when the temperature is likely to exceed 25 degrees centigrade (around 80 fahrenheit).

It's not, of course, because we are softies who can't cope with such modest extremes - it's just that we live in a country were it never gets very cold or very hot. We get very few strong winds or heavy rains. It's a very easy climate to live with.

Which is why anything below freezing is very cold and anything above 75F is very hot.

How's the weather over there?

Richard English

Okay--I love this story!
When my kids were very young, it was 80 degrees below zero (wind chill); at the same time I had a baby who had just had surgery and was vomiting, a son who had strept throat with a fever of 105, and a daughter with pneumonia! It was Christmas/Hannukah time, and we were supposed to travel to Wisconsin to visit my parents. Of course we stayed home.

However, we have extremes here in Illinois. We have had 26 inches of snow & many days of below zero weather in the winter; and blistering heat in the summer--many days in succession of over 100 degrees F. Now, that isn't the norm, and our winter, this year, has been very mild. Today it is 50 degrees F., and we have no snow on the ground. Yet, we are definitely not softies when it comes to weather--and we are prepared for the worst. I believe the falls are our best season; spring is just too unpredictable.

While I presently live in Illinois, I was born and raised in Connecticut (State Motto: "The only state with 3 C's in its name!") (an old Dave Letterman line) and there's no comparison. A forecast of an inch or two of snow is enough for some schools to close here.

Growing up, I experienced several major blizzards and absolutely loved them. In one, when I was 16 or 17, I was one of the very few people (in a town of about 80,000) working during a 3-day stretch of a monster storm. There were the police, the hospital workers, and me, the skinny teenager who had to tunnel his way downtown to open the pet shop to feed and water the animals. In many places the snow had drifted over second story windows and for a large portion of my 3/4 mile walk the snow was well over my head and I had to navigate by keeping a church steeple in sight.

We often had snow so deep that you could do a belly flop into it from the roof of your two-story house and be safely cushioned by it well before you hit the ground. Drove our mothers insane to see this, of course, but God it was fun!

Now, ice storms, they were a different matter! And there was always someone falling through thin ice into an icy pond. The trick was listening to the pitch of the ice as it cracked under your feet to determine how thick it was. Of course, "thick" describes us pretty well back then, too. Happened to me once and a friend had to drag me away on a sled, shivering and crying all the way home.

Ah, the good ol' days!

[This message was edited by C J Strolin on Wed Jan 8th, 2003 at 9:03.]

How is the weather? What a question to ask a Buffalonian!

Well, around here we usually measure snow by the foot, not the inch. Does that give you a hint?

Last Christmas Eve (2001) it started to snow about 5:00 pm and it stopped about 5:00 pm on Christmas Day. We ended up with measured snow at the airport of seven feet. Now, in addition to that, I live up on a hill just south of the city where we also get more Lake Effect snow. We had about eight and a half feet here. And I am not talking about drifted or plowed snow. I'm talking about fallen snow.

This year has been mild in comparison. We have had one storm that brought about 30 inches to our home. And right now, we have about two feet on the ground. We have had a lot of melting and compacting of the snow, but it manages to snow about eight to 12 inches every week. Temperatures have not been too cold this year either. Today was just above freezing, but it has dropped to about 20 F now, and the wind is howling something fierce! So I know the wind chill factor is very low.

But, I love it here. No matter how cold it gets, I can always put on another layer of clothing, or grab an extra blanket, or my cat, or my hubby to snuggle, and keep warm! I can never remove enough to keep cool enough in the summer time!

I learnt yesterday that London had had its heaviest snow for nine years - around 3 inches! There were interviews with delighted schoolchildren who had never seen the stuff previously!

Now you know why we can get caught out over here - we just don't have the practice!

Richard English

quote:

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Originally posted by Morgan:
I can never remove enough to keep cool enough in the summer time!

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On behalf of the more testostironic members of this board, Morgan, allow me to thank you for providing that "appealing" visual.

quote:

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Originally posted by C J Strolin:

quote:

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Originally posted by Morgan:
I can never remove enough to keep cool enough in the summer time!

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On behalf of the more testostironic members of this board, Morgan, allow me to thank you for providing that "appealing" visual.

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Oh, dear! Did I say that????

That is the motto all over my house! Anyway......

Driving in snow is fascinating. Because I am in an area that has frequent snow, we all know how to drive, and our crews clean it up quickly. But in areas south of here, when an inch or two falls, you read about major accidents and pile-ups on the roadways. They close schools and places of employment for mere inches of snow. All because they don't have the equipment or the skills to do what we do on a daily basis.

A friend of mine just moved here from California to marry a man from New York. She was telling me the other day, she had her first accident driving in the snow! I knew it would just be a matter of time.

A major pet peeve of mine is people who not only do not know how to drive in the snow but who refuse to learn.

Case in point: A local moron slides off the road and is now spinning his back wheels in a ditch that is barely deep enough to deserve that name. Nice guy that I am, I pull over to lend a hand and explain to this dolt that when his wheels are spinning he has no traction and, therefore, whenever he feels them spin he should take his damn foot off the gas.

"Got that, Sir?" "Got it! Thanks!" And then he goes right back to spinning his wheels in the ridiculous belief that if he can only get them spinning fast enough his problems will be over!! Maybe he thinks his car is stuck because his front wheels aren't spinning! On top of everything else, it's a special treat when the driver asks me to put my back to his car and push him out as his wheels spray me with mud and slush! I don't think so!! I find it very tempting to push morons into ditches but I firmly believe that I was not placed on earth to push them out.

After repeating this scene several times with this guy and, over the years, many other times with other drivers similarly incapable of understanding basic physics, I still will pull over to lend assistance in situations like this. I just won't stay. One lesson and then, if they don't get it, I'm gone. They can wait for the spring thaw for all I care!

I recall that, a few years ago when we had icy roads for nearly a week, I gave some advice to a woman work colleague who was unable to get home as her car lost traction on the frozen surface and she had to leave it at the bottom of the hill.

I told her to make sure that she kept in as high a gear as possible (it was a manual car) and she should make it OK.

The next morning she arrived at work having spun the car and hit a lamp post. Why? Because I hadn't thought to tell her that she should still be driving at the same SPEED as before, just in a higher gear! so she was travelling at twice the speed she should have been and lost control. Her comment, "...Well, I thought you only used top gear when you're going fast..."

Richard English

It is cold in Chicago now. Headlines: "Single-digit temperatures predicted for the next week." In fact, the wind chill made it -20 degrees F. Just wondering....do they say, "single-digit temperatures" in England? Or doesn't it even get that cold?

Well, we use Centigrade (or Celsius) in our weather forecasts, so any temperature below 48 degrees Fahrenheit would be "single-digit".

The short answer is no. No, we don't use it and no, it doesn't ever get that cold. It is rare for the temperature to stay below freezing for long, and and when it does dip below it's not by much.

I mentioned that weather forecasts are in Centigrade. Old fogies like me still have to do a mental conversion to Fahrenheit to work out how many layers of clothing to wear.

quote:

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Well, we use Centigrade (or Celsius) in our weather forecasts,

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Are Centigrade and Celsius the same thing? And if they are, is one an older name, and one a newer name? Why are there two names? Why do I ask so many questions?

Yes, they are the same. Celsius was the name of the guy who invented the system. In my youth it was always called Centigrade but recently Celsius seems more popular.

Ever notice that -40F is -40C? No? Oh, OK.

Here in Portland, Oregon, we get very little snow, but we do get "black ice," or freezing rain. The old-timers are very cautious when the ground temperature is below freezing and it starts raining, but all the Californians who've moved up here drive their big fat four wheel drive yuppie Jeep clones at seventy miles per minute, and WHAM! Oh, what fun to watch!!!

quote:

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Originally posted by Asa Lovejoy:
Ever notice that -40F is -40C? No? Oh, OK.

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In 1745, Carolus Linnaeus of Upsula, Sweden, described a scale in which the freezing point of water was zero, and the boiling point 100, making it a centigrade (one hundred steps) scale. Anders Celsius (1701-1744) used the reverse scale in which 100 represented the freezing point and zero the boiling point of water, still, of course, with 100 degrees between the two defining points.

In 1948 use of the Centigrade scale was dropped in favor of a new scale using degrees Celsius (° C). The Celsius scale is defined by the following two items that will be discussed later in this essay:
(i) the triple point of water is defined to be 0.01 C
(ii) a degree Celsius equals the same temperature change as a degree on the ideal-gas scale.

On the Celsius scale the boiling point of water at standard atmospheric pressure is 99.975 C in contrast to the 100 degrees defined by the Centigrade scale.

To convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit: multiply by 1.8 and add 32.
================================================
-40 x 1.8 = 32 =
-72 + 40 = -40
================================================
In 1933, the International Committee of Weights and Measures adopted this fixed point as the triple point of water , the temperature at which water, ice, and water vapor coexist in equilibrium); its value is set as 273.16. The unit of temperature on this scale is called the kelvin, after Lord Kelvin (William Thompson), 1824-1907, and its symbol is K (no degree symbol used).

To convert from Celsius to Kelvin, add 273.


K = ° C + 273.

About Temperature (http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/blynds/tmp.html)

Celsius to Fahrenheit (http://www.texloc.com/closet/cl_cel_fah_chart.html)

Temperature Conversion
(http://www.csupomona.edu/~smbarton/ged511/tempconv.html)

The USA is the only country that still uses the Farenheit scale. Celcius is used for scientific purposes, however. I don't remember hearing of the Celcius scale until college, even though the article said it was adopted in 1948.

Tinman

Tinman, thanks for the scholarliness! In the medical fields, we often have to convert from centigrade to farenheit for body temperatures. Patients, who only know farenheit, get quite concerned when students tell them their temperature is 37 degrees!

In Chicago we are now out of the deep freeze (30s F), but now the snows have come.

To convert easily from centigrade to Fahrenheit, double the centigrade figure and add 30. So 20 degrees C is 40 + 30 = 70 degrees F.

Or to use your example, 37 x 2 = 74 + 20 = 94. Not clinically precise but near enough for most purposes - certainly for most weather temperatures above zero C.

Reverse the formula to convert from C to F.

You will amaze your friends by doing it in your head!

Richard English

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In Chicago we are now out of the deep freeze (30s F), but now the snows have come.

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And in Buffalo, where there is a hard packed 3 to 8 foot shoulder to either side of our driveway, we just hit a low of -3 degrees F last night! Driving down the driveway to the garage feels like you are driving through a tunnel!

quote:

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Originally posted by Richard English:
To convert easily from centigrade to Fahrenheit, double the centigrade figure and add 30. So 20 degrees C is 40 + 30 = 70 degrees F.

Or to use your example, 37 x 2 = 74 + 20 = 94. Not clinically precise but near enough for most purposes - certainly for most weather temperatures above zero C.

Reverse the formula to convert from C to F.

You will amaze your friends by doing it in your head!

Richard English

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74 ºC = 98.6 ºF, body temperature.
You cited the formula ºC X 2 + 30 = ºF, but used ºC X 2 + 20 = ºF in your calculation.

Using your cited formula, 0ºC, the freezing point of water = 0+0+30 = 30ºF and 100ºC, the boiling point = 100+100+30 = 230ºF.

Conversely, 32ºF (FP) = 16-30 = -14ºC and 212ºF (BP) =106-30=76ºC. Close, but no cigar.

Use ºC X 1.8 + 32 = ºF and you'll be right on the money, and that's fairly easy to calculate in your head. Converting ºF to ºC is slightly harder: (ºF - 32) x 5/9 = ºC. (5/9 = 0.5555.......6).

Tinman

So I did! I wondered why it wasn't as close as it should have been!

Nevertheless I stick by my formula. For conversions of climatic temperatures it's as near as makes no difference and can be done in a split second in the head. Once you get above 100 degrees or below 0 degrees Fahrenheit the error implicit is too great.

The correct conversion factor - 9/5 +32 - is not something that many would attempt as a mental arithmetical exercise.

Richard English

quote:

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Originally posted by Richard English:
The correct conversion factor - 9/5 +32 - is not something that many would attempt as a mental arithmetical exercise.

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It's X9/5 + 32. (9/5 = 1.8). I'll shut up now.

Tinman

[This message was edited by tinman on Sat Feb 1st, 2003 at 0:54.]

For a centigrade to fahrenheit conversion, I find the mental arithmetic easier this way:
1) double the centigrade temperature (easy)
2) knock off 1/10 of the result (1/10 is easy to figure), and then
3) add 32.

The combination of the first two steps is equivalent to multiplying by 1.8, as per tinman's formula, but perhaps is easier to do in your head.

PS: Tinman, check for a private message.

quote:

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Originally posted by wordnerd:
For a centigrade to fahrenheit conversion, I find the mental arithmetic easier this way:
1) double the centigrade temperature (easy)
2) knock off 1/10 of the result (1/10 is easy to figure), and then
3) add 32.

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Yes, that does seem much easier. Now, can you find an easy way to mentally convert F to C?

Tinman

Took a little work, Tinman, but to convert a F figure to C,

Halve the figure; to the result, add 1/10th of that result; then subtract 17.

This won't be 100% accurate, but in normal ranges the error will be only about half a degree.

For example, 68º F is (precisely) 20º C. The rough method above gives

-- Halve 68, and get 34
-- Take that 34, take a tenth of it (that is, 3.4), and add them together. 34 plus 3.4 is 37.4
-- Then subtract 17, and get 20.4ºC.

Pretty darn close. Of course, it's easier to do in your head, with little loss of accuracy, if you just round the decimal fractions.

Apologies again for the careless use of language.

The mark in the sentence above was supposed to be a "M dash" not a minus sign. I agree that it would be nonsense were that to be the case.

Richard English

Deduct 30 and halve the remainder. 70 degrees F minus 30 is 40, divide by 2 is 20. So, it's 1.1 degrees out - who's counting that hard!

It's much easier than the nine-fifths method.

Richard English

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It's not, of course, because we are softies who can't cope with such modest extremes

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As we are venturing into below-zero wind-chill temperatures here in Chicago, I have decided that you Brits are, indeed, softies! I have been watching the temperatures in London, and you are at the 50 degree F mark nearly every day.

By the way, I presume in U.K. they have wind chills, as well? I rather hate them because they make the weather seem even worse than it is!

Of course, we have no control over our weather - neither do we have much idea of what it's going to be like in, say, 24 hours.

But softies? I don't think so. Look at the vast tracts of the globe that were originally explored and settled by the British - from the equator to the poles we distributed our favours - more widely, I suggest, than any other nation.

Richard English

Oh, dear, open mouth--insert foot! Sorry. I just meant that I am soooo sick and tired of -9 degree F chill factors, and I longingly look at London's 50 degrees F, that's all.

To answer Kalleh's question, yes, we do have to take wind chill into consideration. The published temperatures don't pay heed to the effect of wind. However, we don't often have very strong winds (compared to those in the US, anyway), so the wind chill effect is rarely particularly noticeable -- a few degrees most days perhaps.

So, your weather reports don't give wind-chill factors, as ours do. I rather wish ours wouldn't bother. In the summer we also have a humidity factor and a pollution factor. It is all rather cumbersome. I wish they'd just give the temperature and leave it at that.

Arnie, I love your expression "pay heed"; I am fairly sure you wouldn't hear that anywhere in the U.S.

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Arnie, I love your expression "pay heed"; I am fairly sure you wouldn't hear that anywhere in the U.S.

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You would hear it here!

As far as the cold temperatures go, I don't know what the numbers are today. (Does it really matter?) It was cold enough that the schools all closed in our 1/3 of the state, and probably beyond, and many public service agencies in our area closed as well. Our agency closed so that 1,700 volunteers in our area did not have to worry about frost bite. Wind chill is an extremely important number to us (we?) in Buffalo. My boss paid heed to it today.

Weather forecasters will mention wind chill if it is likely to be significant, but as I said, most days it will only lower the temperature by a few degrees.

Similarly they will mention humidity, pollen count and sun strength if any of these are likely to be significant.

However, as has been mentioned previously, we live in a very fortunate country; it never gets very hot and it never gets very cold. It rarely rains hard and we don't get force 10 winds inland more than every decade or so. Tornadoes don't happen and if we get snow it's rarely more than a couple of inches.

Of course, we could get all these different climatic conditions in the same week, so the weather is a topic of perpetual interest to us!

Richard English

Richard,

On January 8 you asked, "How's the weather over there?"

That was five weeks ago, and I could say that your question took such a long time to find me due to the great distance from London to Hilo.

The truth is that I am still exploring and slowly getting acquainted with nooks and crannies in this wonderful website.

Here's how it is right now over here in this far western part of America ==>

Hilo Weather at: 6:52 am HST

Currently:Fair
66º (19C)
Hi: 77 (25C)
Lo: 66 (18C)

On those rare occasions when the temperature plunges to a frigid 65 degrees F or lower, I start worrying about a solution to the problem. Should I put on LONG pants, or close a window, or just go back to being bundled up in my wool blanket and wait for sunrise?

~~~ jerry

Just an update on Chicago's variable weather. Last Monday it was 5 degrees F with below zero chill factor, 12 inches of snow on the ground, and we broke an 1892 temperature record. Today, it is 65 degrees F., sunny, gorgeous, with no snow left. What will tomorrow bring?

Kalleh, it sounds much like Buffalo. The standard joke is, "Don't like our weather? Wait five minutes, it'll change!"

We still have 1 to 9 feet of hard packed snow (you can stand on it and not make a foot print) throughout our yard. The grass is nowhere to be seen. Yet, just a mile down the hill, there is barely any snow at all.

Hilo Weather at: 5:52 pm HST
Currently: 76º Partly Cloudy Hi: 78 Lo: 69

Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea have many feet of snow at their summits, but down here at 120 feet above sea level, there's barely any snow at all.

Here in London we've had a spell of lovely sunny weather for the last five days or so. There's hardly been a cloud in the sky all day. It's not particularly warm, though, with a chilly breeze blowing from the east. Temperatures have been around 50-55 F during the day, but must have been around freezing at night.

A week ago today I e-mailed all our state boards of nursing (61) an agenda for our teleconference call scheduled for the following Tuesday. I ended that e-mail with, "Spring has sprung in Chicago!" because it was warm and wonderful. Boy was that a mistake! Our weather then turned to near zero temperatures, and we got 6 inches of snow! However, today we are back in the 70s! We do have unpredictable weather in the spring in Chicago.