I was living in Canada in the late 1970s when Canada (half) converted. There was a lot of discussion at the time on how difficult it was to convert between degrees F and C. Eventually, most people agreed that in fact such difficulty actually aided conversion to metric. Once degrees C had become established (with nobody bothering to convert back to deg. F, too difficult), it followed that windspeed and pressure should follow suit. And it happened quite quickly - I remember getting in an elevator in downtown Toronto during an unsually warm spell in May 1980, and the lady standing next to me remarked on the fact this was going to be "another 25 degree day" (usual temperature in mid May is around 12 C).
The barometer/thermometer I had in my front hall measured ONLY in kPa and deg. C. I have just got back from a visit to Canada. Re my previous note some time ago on sizes of products in Canadian stores, most products are labelled ONLY in metric - even those marked as 946 mL, 3.78 L, etc. But in fact, I found the oddest collection of product sizes I have ever seen - 532 mL, 1.03 L, 1.07 L (go figure!), 612 mL, and so on, along with more rational sizes. I don't remember it this way. I cannot make any sense of those values (and many more like them) no matter what measurment units you use - metric, USC or UK/Canadian imperial. I did notice that indivudually packed meat and vegetable products were weighed and priced only in metric. (e.g. 0.350 kg @ $12.50/kg). The Olympics are virtually 100% metric on CTV, the only imperial units I noticed were when commentators occasionally talked about athletes' heights in feet and inches. However, metric still has some way to go regarding the man/woman in the street - while larger distances are always in km, you are more likely to hear feet rather than metres for small distances. Quite how people know just how big a foot is, is a mystery, as, give the Canadian media (print, radio, TV) its due, they will almost only use metric values, and the kids are (or were) taught only metric in school. Must be from watching too much American TV! John F-L ----- Original Message ----- From: John M. Steele To: U.S. Metric Association Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2010 1:08 AM Subject: [USMA:46779] Re: Canadians seem to have nailed metrication when it comes to weather Environment Canada operates this website. I'm not sure if the city (Windsor, Ontario) is embedded in the url, or a cookie. They source the Canadian data to the various newspapers and media outlets, just as NWS does in the US. They are proper metric, although I believe you can set conversion preferences by reading help file. http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/on-94_metric_e.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Fri, February 26, 2010 7:50:25 PM Subject: [USMA:46777] Canadians seem to have nailed metrication when it comes to weather I just happened to check out an article in the Vancouver (Canada) Sun online and noticed the link for the current weather, so I thought I'd have a look. You can choose many different countries and cities within each country, so I tried where I live (Seattle area): http://www.vancouversun.com/weather/index.html?rg=us&city=seattle I notice that everything is given in proper SI (except for wind speed, which is in km/h rather than m/s, but I'll take it anyway, especially since they use the proper syntax instead of some monstrosity like "kph"), including the use of kPa for barometric pressure. And there is no option I could find to switch to Imperial! I've seen Canadian national weather reports on the CBC and the story is the same --- not a whisper of Imperial anywhere. If only the USA were anywhere close to this! Cheers, Ezra
