The problem I had with Weatherbug is that they showed metric wind speed as “kph”. Repeated e-mails to their customer comment line had no effect.
Carleton
Dear Carleton,
I encourage you to persist with your advice to Weatherbug about the correct use of km/h and not kph.
I have attached a letter that I sent to local newspapers here in Australia. They all now use the form km/h and they use a space between the number and the unit as in 60 km/h so I wish you my best encouragement. However, it took a few attempts to achieve this.
Here is one of the letters:
The Editor
The Age
Dear Editor,
I am appalled at the response of your 'Drive' editor to a letter written by
Bert Smith in Thursday's copy of 'The Age' (2003-04-24). I quote your
editor:
'The use of kmh is the style adopted by The Age and other Fairfax papers'.
>From which orphanage was this style adopted. It definitely did not come from
any reputable institution.
I have checked with the National Standards Commission in Australia, they use
the correct unit, km/h. I have referred to the 'International System of
Units (SI) 7th Edition 1998', and the website of the Bureau Internationale
de Poids et Mesures (BIPM), and they use km/h. To make sure, I also checked
with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the USA; they use
km/h. All of these sources recommend km/h as the correct international
symbol for kilometres per hour.
The unit symbol, km/h, is correct because it demonstrates how the value was
obtained. If I drive 120 kilometres in 2 hours, I then calculate my speed as
120 divided by 2 to get 60 km/h. The fact that I divided one number by
another is included in the solidus (or slash) contained within the unit,
km/h. Your travesty of an abbreviation, kmh, is completely meaningless as it
implies multiplying 120 km by 2 h (to get 240 kmh?), rather than the correct
60 km/h obtained by division.
You are wrong in using kmh as an abbreviation for kilometres per hour. You
are wrong because you are ignoring all international agreements and
standards. You are also wrong because what you write, in the abbreviation
kmh, is simply wrong physics and wrong engineering.
Perhaps it was the nonchalance of your editor's explanation that raised my
ire. It seemed to me that the 'Drive' editor was saying to the Physics
teacher, Bert Smith, 'We are wrong when we use kmh, we know that we are
wrong, but we don't really care about you, your students, or, for that
matter, we don't really care about any other students in Australia, either'.
Yours faithfully,
Pat Naughtin
Pat Naughtin was a measurement consultant to the Australian Government
Publishing Service, 'Style manual: for writers, editors and printers, 6th
Edition 2002'; he is also recognised as a Lifetime Certified Advanced
Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association.
P.S. You can check km/h at:
http://www.nsc.gov.au/
http://www.bipm.fr/
http://www.nist.gov/
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