This weekend, West Texas endured its hardest freeze in many years. VERY seldom does our thermometer register negative numbers, but the last couple of nights I have observed minus one readings. Big deal, huh? I lived in northern Maine, where the daily high temperature would be a negative number for weeks on end. I experienced -40 once, and yawned. Down here, though, a little bit of protracted freeze gets everyone bent out of shape.
This dangling at the freezing point of water brought home to me the neat logic of Celsius. Negative number, negative for liquid water, which gets nixed into solid water whenever the minus sign is sustained. But, right now, it is a blessed 3, and everything is going drip,drip,drip as the thick coating of freezing rain unfreezes. Around here, the ground is so dry that it sucks up every drop of melt. Keep the temperature in positive numbers here, and the ice, or for that matter snow, can be completely gone in less than a day. Paul Trusten, Registered Pharmacist Vice President and Public Relations Director U.S. Metric Association, Inc. Midland, Texas, USA +1(432)528-7724 www.metric.org trus...@grandecom.net
