The Celsius Scale Ask Dave a weather question

Dave Thurlow, Host

 
Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook. The Celsius or centigrade scale, two names for the same thing, has never caught on in the United States. We here in the U.S. think in Fahrenheit, simply because we're used to it. Both scales work, both do the trick, but the Celsius scale is so simple and so sensible, that it makes the Fahrenheit scale look silly. But as silly as it is, once your used to it, it makes a sensible scale look silly. You know what I mean? Well anyway here's the story.

In 1742, Anders Celsius got to thinking about the Fahrenheit thermometer that had been invented just 30 years earlier. On the Fahrenheit scale, two very significant things happened at two very insignificant points. The temperature at which water freezes is at 32 degrees and the temperature at which water boils is at 212. Why not, Celsius thought, simplify things a bit and call the freezing point zero and the boiling point 100. This would create a centigrade scale, meaning 100 equal parts, or degrees.

Why the whole world didn't just chuck those Fahrenheit thermometers out the window at this point is beyond me. Even in modern times we try to switch. A national effort was made 10 years ago or so to switch to Celsius, to be in step with every other nation in the world except Liberia, but it just didn't take. Even weather reporters have now given up trying to spread the wisdom of Mr. Celsius. A shame, because Celsius, in fact all metric measurement is easier.

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