News - Blogs - Fahrenheit is fairly uncommon next to Celsius worldwide

Fahrenheit is fairly uncommon next to Celsius worldwide
Published: 7/18/2011 7:00 AM
Last Modified: 7/17/2011 9:55 PM

This is what pops up when you search for images related to "Celsius." Here, a lemur eats from a refrigerated watermelon Tuesday to refresh itself in Rome's zoo. Zoo staff offered animals frozen and refrigerated fruit to refresh them as temperatures reached 40 Celsius (104 Farenheit) in many Italian cities. AP Photo/Rome Bioparco Foundation

Forget triple digit heat, it's actually only about 38 degrees!

Celsius, that is. In Fahrenheit, it's still 100 degrees. Sorry.

In honor of one of my colleagues moving to the New England states, I decided to look at England's temperature scale. Rather, it's almost the entire world's scale, other than the United States, said Tulsa National Weather Service meteorologist Karen Hatfield.

Only the United States and Belize use Fahrenheit, with Canada using it as a secondary scale to Celsius.

If you don't remember junior high math, the equation involves the number 32 and the fraction five-ninths (or nine-fifths).

Celsius = (Fahrenheit - 32) times 5/9

Fahrenheit = Celsius times 9/5 + 32

For a quick reference, however, the easiest to remember are freezing (0 degrees Celsius, 32 degrees Fahrenheit), boiling (100 degrees Celsius, 212 degrees Fahrenheit) or where the two are equal (minus-40 degrees).

Most of the rest of the world also measures wind speed in meters per second (as opposed to miles per hour) and millimeters for precipitation (as opposed to inches).

So, why the preference for the other scale? As Hatfield explains, there might be a practical explanation for one of them. Meters per second is easily converted to knots. Simply double the meters per second and you have a good rough estimate for knots.

Why do meteorologists care about nautical miles? Once again, many National Weather Service readings sites are at airports for a reason.

--Althea Peterson

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Almanac

Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

	Temperature		Precipitation
Date	High Temp	Low Temp	Total	Month to date	Historical average
1	44°	16°	0	0.00	0.05
2	59°	24°	0	0.00	0.11
3	57°	33°	0	0.00	0.16
4	68°	37°	Trace	0.00	0.21
5	69°	29°	0	0.00	0.26
6	66°	33°	0	0.00	0.32
7	59°	38°	0.05	0.05	0.38
8	51°	34°	0	0.05	0.44
9	44°	36°	0.01	0.06	0.51
10	62°	37°	0.07	0.13	0.57
11	54°	28°	0	0.13	0.64
12	44°	30°	0.25	0.38	0.70
13	55°	40°	0.01	0.39	0.76
14	°	°			0.83
15	°	°			0.89
16	°	°			0.95
17	°	°			1.02
18	°	°			1.09
19	°	°			1.16
20	°	°			1.23
21	°	°			1.31
22	°	°			1.38
23	°	°			1.46
24	°	°			1.53
25	°	°			1.61
26	°	°			1.69
27	°	°			1.77
28	°	°			1.85

TEMPERATURE

RAINFALL

SNOWFALL

Weather World

Follow Jerry Wofford on Twitter for updates during severe weather conditions.

Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
>> Send us your weather photos
>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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