Monday, March 30, 2009

Time and Weather

Here's what my weather will be today. This is exactly what was written...I cut & pasted it straight from the website. I swear. Does anyone else think it's funny?

Sunny. Nippy. 45 °F
Sunny. Nippy.
What else is interesting about the weather forecasts here is the inconsistency between the temperature reported as Celsius and Fahrenheit. Now this isn't necessarily true for all of the UK, but I have observed that in my little part of the world over here that when it is really cold, the temperature is reported in Celsius. Like instead of it being 32 degrees Fahrenheit, it will be reported as zero degrees Celsius....but when it is warmer, like in the mid-to-upper 40's, it becomes Fahrenheit again. At first I thought it was just me, that it wasn't really happening like that. Then one day as I was discussing the weather in general with my friend Fiona, she asked me if I ever noticed how the measure of the weather flip-flops, and then proceeded to tell me about the switch back and forth. I was relieved to hear that I wasn't imagining it, but curious as to why.


Fiona said - and mind you, these are her words, and she is British - that the English just really love the opportunity to complain. She gave me an example...according to Fiona, if you want to complain about the cold weather, it is going to sound a lot colder when you say it is two below, instead of 28 degrees. If you want to complain about it being too warm, it sounds much more oppressive to say it is 86 degrees instead of 30.

And while I'm talking about numbers, I should also mention that Daylight Savings Time began on Saturday night. I never knew that Europe's schedule for springing forward and falling back is different than the time we use in North America. Did you? So I guess that now I am nine hours ahead of the west coast. Oy.

2 comments:

  1. I found your blog off of off someone else's and I just had to subscribe! So funny! I miss the Nelms!!

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