Thermometers
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Always open, always free, with over 3,000 to see. Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow and this is The Weather Notebook. That's the motto at the world's only thermometer museum, where curator Richard Porter showed me nearly every single thermometer in his collection, all of which is housed in his basement.

Richard Porter

The thermometer is the most famous of tools in the weather trade, but thermometers don't always measure air. They measure things like...well, here take a listen. In fact, let's see if we can set the world record for the most thermometers described on a radio program in one minute. Ready...Go!

"A mercury thermometer, an inch long that was in Cracker Jacks as a prize in the 1920's...this is one of the thermometers that are used in deep sea study...this is an old one used for antifreeze testing...and here's one of Marilyn Monroe...this one came from Boston Banana...these particular ones are used for studying skin tumors...this is a thermometer that's used by astronauts, its sewed right into the spacesuit...this one is about 18 inches tall...the only pair of working thermometer earrings...this is a maximum-minimum type...I do have one over here, and it reads to minus 100...it's this type of thermometer that can keep grain fresh for your morning cereal for five years...this is a replica of that big one in Chicago...this other one here is from the Coca-Cola museum in Atlanta...ceramic animals from Florida...that's a fishing thermometer from Minnesota...several dozen in the shape of keys...Galileo's thermomento lento...a bathtub floater...it's a paperweight...a slow thermometer...a floating thermometer...sterling silver."

There it is! 24 thermometers in one minute, a new world record, and you heard it here on The Weather Notebook. Our show is funded by Subaru, the beauty of all wheel drive, with major support provided by the National Science Foundation.