On 08/05/2013 14:54, Weatherlawyer wrote:
Why does the metric for 30 inches mean about 1016 millibars?

I presume you mean here 30" Hg is 762mmHg or 1016millibars

A standard atmosphere is 760mmHg = 1013.25mb
A quirk of the units of measure only makes these numbers match.

One pascal is basically an annoying factor of ~10^5 too small!

I was looking at a tape measure for the first time in (an interesting
career????) and noticed that 1016 millimeters is 40 inches. Is it time
I bought a new tape?

No. 40 x 25.4 is also 1016mm. But unless you are very heavily into
arcane numerology it is of no significance whatsoever.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown