Let’s ignore the fact that celsius is taught in American schools because “hAha AMeRiCa bAd beCauSe nO MeTric.”
Because for weather, °F is arguably better. 0°F - 100°F is the general range that most weather on the planet happens at (yes I know there are extremes where it gets to like -30°F or 120°F, but bear* with me). You can then further break those up into 10°F segments that are a bit more practical and granular than 10°C segments:
- under 0°F: stay inside
- 0°F - 10°F: really fucking cold, don’t stay out too long or you risk hypothermia
- 10°F - 20°F: still really cold, but you can stay out long enough to shovel your driveway without fear of losing fingers/toes, if you’re wearing winter gear
- 20°F - 30°F: cold but not bitterly so. Perfect weather for outdoor winter activities like sledding or snowball fights
- 30°F - 40°F: Snow starts melting here, and you can probably ditch the scarf, but you still need a winter jacket
- 40°F - 50°F: Too warm for your heavy winter jacket, to cold for your light spring jacket. It’s layering season baybee
- 50°F - 60°F: still layering season, but you can probably get by with just a light jacket at this point, especially if you’re doing something active outside. Some people start breaking out the shorts, but that’s not the norm.
- 60°F - 70°F: a more generally acceptable range to start wearing shorts and short sleeves. Perfect temps for doing yard work and sipping beers on the patio alike
- 70°F - 80°F: definitely shorts weather, and pools start coming into play. If you’re doing something rigorous outside, you’re probably sweating
- 80°F - 90°F: you’d probably rather be inside, if you’re not in a pool. You’ll be sweating just lounging in your deck chair.
- 90°F - 100°F: hot as balls, probably not worth going outside for very long, as the pool water feels like taking a dip in lukewarm soup
- Over 100°F: stay inside
Now I know you can do something similar with °C, but the workable range there is smaller, because you’re going from like -15°C to 40°C. It’s less granular, and the start/stop temps are more awkward.
Is it weird that water freezes at 32°F and boils at 212°F? Sure, absolutely. When you’re doing stuff in that context, it absolutely makes sense to use Celsius, where you’re working on a nice, neat 0°C-100°C range. But weather, the thing most people contextualize temperatures with, doesn’t happen in that range. It starts well below freezing, and (hopefully) doesn’t get anywhere close to the boiling point of water. For that, I’d argue °F is actually a little more useful.
All these arguments don’t really have any effect in reality. As someone born in Australia everyone is super comfortable with Celsius and the problems you describe just don’t exist because in the end it’s really just what you’re used to.
To me Fahrenheit seems incredibly awkward but then I wasn’t brought up using it.
Because it doesn’t have as much resolution as Fahrenheit.
There are 180 degrees between freezing water and boiling water in °F. But 100 degrees between the two in °C. So with Fahrenheit we can give mote accurate temperature info without resorting to decimal degrees. And if your response is “learn to handle decimals” then the same argument can be given for inches vs mm.
It’s taught but not really for weather. So while I know the boiling and freezing points of various substances in Celsius, I don’t have instant recognition when I hear a Celsius temperature, I have to convert it in my head.
No need to convert. 0 to 40 is the part of the scale for weather, where 0 is dangerously cold and 40 is dangerously hot.
No need to convert? What do you mean? Are you saying if I just intrinsically knew Celsius for weather I wouldn’t have to convert Celsius? Because that’s obviously true, but I’m just explaining I don’t intrinsically know Celsius in that way.
Also, even if I did get to know Celsius really well, I would still have to convert it every time someone uses Fahrenheit, which is pretty much all the time in the US.
Lastly, what do you mean, saying 0 C is “dangerously cold” and suggesting that below that temp is outside of the bounds of what is used for weather? Where I live the temperature stays below 0 C for long periods of time, never going above it.
What’s 28° C? How can I envision in my mind what that means?
0-40 as a scale. 28 is about 3/4 between the two. So it’s towards the hotter side but how far into it?
It’s 82.4° F
Low 80s. I know exactly how low 80’s feel.
0-100 is easy to compare with %
82.4° F is 82% hot.
Humans like it around 75% hot between 50-100.
So 82° is hot but not pushing 90s
You can get a general idea of temperature very easy.
40 ain’t dangerously hot. Temperature reaches 50°C in some parts of the world.
