Comments on: An improvement in the weather

By: Russell Partridge

Russell Partridge — Tue, 11 May 2010 10:31:17 +0000

I use metric measurements and think in metric having run a weather station using millimetres and degrees Celsius for many years. When you get used to something it becomes second nature.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 03 May 2010 18:01:18 +0000

In a recent case in the UK a teacher assaulted a pupil with a 3 kg dumbell. It’s obviously a very distressing case, and well reported. I was interested to note that while most press coverage referred to the 3kg weight, including BBC local news coverage, in their prime time ‘Ten o clock News’ last week, the news anchor referred to an assault by a ’6lb’ dumb bell. So they not wrongly convert the mass of the item used, but also blatantly ignore the images from the trial which clearly shows a 3kg dumb bell! Why not just report the facts!

By: Ezra Steinberg

Ezra Steinberg — Sat, 01 May 2010 03:53:43 +0000

Given David Brown’s post about BBC Radio 4, is there any way to probe what the rationale is behind the continued use of Fahrenheit over the airways on any of the radio and TV stations and channels associated with the BBC?

By: David Brown

David Brown — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:54:06 +0000

I remember as a child listening to weather bulletins on BBC Radio 4, which my mother had on regularly. Every temperature was given as “x centigrade, y fahrenheit”. I developed the impression that fahrenheit was a sub-division of centigrade – like feet and inches. That must have been 40 years ago. What has changed since then? On BBC radio, very little. They have brought the name of the “centigrade” unit up to date – though you sometimes hear the old name still, but they still seem obsessed with giving out a confusing list of numbers for every temperature. Considering Radio 4 is the BBC’s intelligent radio output it really is incredible that they persist with such un-intelligent broadcasting.

By: Richard Ational

Richard Ational — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:53:22 +0000

The official body for things meteorological in the UK is The Meteorological Office who give the definitive list of units to be used and their abbreviations at http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/guide/key.html. It is my understanding that the World Meteorological Organisation, an agency of the United Nations, (http://www.wmo.int/pages/index_en.html) requires that for the international exchange of wind speed data, there are three accepted options: km per hour, knot, meter per second. Note: Miles per hour are not acceptable, so why can’t the UK Met. Office show some fortitude and start using km/h.? After all, it is a trading fund agency of a government department, the Ministry of Defence, and therefore should be using metric measures as per http://www.nmo.bis.gov.uk/Docs/Legislation/Units%20of%20Measurement/Gnotes%20for%20public%20sector%20on%20use%20of%20metric.pdf or isn’t weather forecasting considered to have an impact on economic activity, public health and public safety?

By: A

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:10:35 +0000

Phil – I think if kPa was used, it would omit the small variations in air pressure. 99 kPa is quite a bit different from 101 kPa and would result in rounding of numbers whereas mbar and hPa both show small variations.

Typically air pressue is given as four significant figures on weather forecast pages and in a 24 hour period, the air pressure will vary but this variation will not be shown using kPa. Say a day varies between 1015 to 1024 mbar, it would be shown as a consistant 102 kPa but using hPa would retain the additional units. Could use a decimal point and have it as 102.1 kPa however it will become disjointed when the .0s are omitted.

I think the flexibility of the Metric system should be used for its full potential. 1 kPa is just 10 hPa and 1 hPa is 1 mbar.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:27:25 +0000

I was going to make the point that philh already has: that regional BBC weather reports insist on telling you the Fahrenheit comparison; it’s meaningless to most people. Again on ESPN during the Arsenal vs Man City game, the commentator said ‘It really is hot out there. Somewhere in the seventies’. Sorry, this means nothing to me and I have no idea how hot this really is (I sound like an imperial die hard complaining about metric here!).

Anyway, get ready for more of this during the play off matches at Wembley, where no doubt it will be a scorching 100 degrees!

By: philh

philh — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:42:59 +0000

There is nothing wrong with hPa in principle but would it seem natural to quote, say, a distance of 100 000 m as 1000 hm?

The system is flexible but there is an intended heirachy of prefixes which shouldn’t be disrupted by trying to emulate legacy units.

I think I could get used to the idea that 101 kPa is typical of fine weather and 99 kPa dull and unsettled.

By: Alex Bailey

Alex Bailey — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:34:23 +0000

I was actually a little surprised at an iPhone app I downloaded recently. Provided by the UK Met Office you can switch temperature from C to F (C is the default) but wind speeds can only be shown in MPH or Knots, there is no option whatsoever for either m/s or km/h.

Other weather apps I’ve used don’t seem to bother with wind speed so there has been no basis for comparison!

By: A

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 10:21:46 +0000

I don’t watch the weather but I do go on the BBC weather website. For a while they had toggle buttons displaying KPH and wind speeds displayed in KPH. I did email them to change to km/h. They did after a while but it didn’t last long. The button was changed back to KPH then to KM/H before going to km/h with mph changed to lowercase as well. However mph is default yet °C and mb (should really be mbar) are used. Distances from the observation stations are given in mi and km though with no space between the numbers and km.

However the Met Office forecast does not give any options to show Metric units only. They have a mix. °C and mph and distances in m and km.

Also, would hPa not be a better unit than kPa to replace mbar since they are equal?