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Old July 7th 03, 10:45 PM posted to sci.geo.meteorology
I R A Darth Aggie I R A Darth Aggie is offline
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First recorded activity by Weather-Banter: Oct 2003
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Default Meteorologists! Stop it! There is no hectopascal.

On Mon, 7 Jul 2003 20:58:06 +0000 (UTC),
David Blanchard,,, , in
wrote:
+ In article , R. Martin wrote:

+ IMO David is correct. For ease and clarity of communications,
+ especially among professionals, the professionals doing the
+ communicating should, as they always have, choose the units.
+ It is a convention, perhaps less formal than SI, but a manmade
+ convention none the less, and nothing is sacred about any of them,
+ including SI, as long as they do the job.

Agreed.

+ Many years ago, a colleague gave a seminar discussing a flash flood event.
+ He mentioned that the rainfall rates from these storms were XX inches/hour,
+ then backtracked and, with a wink, give them in SI units of
+ meters/sec.

Surely you're joking, Mr. Blanchard!

+ Very useful number in the first form, totally useless in the second.

No doubt. If I did my computations correctly, a 10 inch/hour rain rate
works out to 7x10^-5 m/s. I can hear my college physics instructor
bellowing about significant digits and accuracy even now...

James
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