Tuesday, March 04, 2003

Kelvin, Celsius, Reaumur, Rankine, Fahrenheit:

The weather forecast on the radio this morning made me think about a conflict between accepted international standards and common sense.

The radio stream went something like this:

"Today's high temperature will be 40, with continuing rain. Presently, scattered showers, with 45 degrees."

Hey! Last I checked, 45 is higher than 40! And this is exactly the problem - the way the World Meteorological Organization decided to define daily high temperatures apparently makes this stupidity possible. As far as I understand it, the problem is caused by the fact that the meteorological day does not start at midnight, but at noon. This must cause some interesting data-base dating problems...

Ah-so, grasshopper. Now go try and use that excuse when you hand in your weather project a few hours late...