No way!!

[senorpepr]

lol JTWC is the worst in the area, but hey, whatever floats your inaccurate boat

I would rather use a US based organization that doesn't use an odd way of measuring a cyclone's intensity based on gusts and kilometers per hour.

Oh jeez. With all due respect, someone needs to toss you into a snowbank. This is, by far, the silliest post I've seen in the past month ... and there are some CRAZY things posted in this forum...

I can't believe you would rather use an organization with limited experience (JTWC... and I say that because a majority of their forecasters only have a couple of years experience in tropical forecasting at best) over professionals (BoM). That is like going to Greatone for your hurricane forecasts...

(Not comparing JTWC to Greatone, of course...)

[Rod Hagen]

I would rather use a US based organization that doesn't use an odd way of measuring a cyclone's intensity based on gusts and kilometers per hour.

why would we care tho since kmh is the measurement that is used here.

Imagine the confusion if BOM decided to use mph on the advisories the average person would not know what to expect since kmh is what is used here in Australia.

converting is not difficult anyway

1 kt = 1.15 mph
1 mph = 1.6 kmh

its what I have done for years with tracking Atlantic Hurricanes and talking to u guys converting my terminology into US terminology

I'm rather intrigued that when it comes to things like windspeeds ANYONE uses anything other than kph ( or, perhaps, metres per second) . Sure, we've only had kph as the standard in mainstream Australia since the mid 1970's but the metric system has been the standard international system for scientific matters since 1875.

Heck, the US Congress adopted it as the official US system "except when the use of these units would obviously impair communication or reduce the usefulness of a report" way back in 1901!

104 years is enough time for at least those in the US with an interest in scientific matters like meteorology to get in line with the rest of the world and their own legislature, I reckon!

You can even take it back further. Thomas Jefferson attempted to introduce a variant of the metric system in 1789. In 1866 the international metric system was legally permitted in the US and in 1875 the US became one of the founding signatories of the treaty that established the International System of Units.

I notice that in prominent US scientific publications International units are almost invariably used. Just the amateurs who are reluctant to change, I guess. If the authorities are worried about people not understanding the metric system in warning broadcasts then surely they could just publish both figures for a while (as we did here when I was in my early twenties).

In fact, maybe members on a board like this could help to "lead the way", by standardising on the metric system when discussing such things.

Cheers

Rod

[joseph01]

(Not comparing JTWC to Greatone, of course...)

I was absent from this forum apparently, when this "Greatone" was here. I have seen many references to him/her in posts, and am curious about this episode.

It would be nice if someone would write a very brief synopsis of that story, so I could understand the lasting memory. Obviously, for whatever reason, he was a memorable figure.

[senorpepr]

(Not comparing JTWC to Greatone, of course...)

I was absent from this forum apparently, when this "Greatone" was here. I have seen many references to him/her in posts, and am curious about this episode.

It would be nice if someone would write a very brief synopsis of that story, so I could understand the lasting memory. Obviously, for whatever reason, he was a memorable figure.

I'm able ready to step out, so I can't share the whole story, but it wasn't just one episode. Greatone has been with us, unfortunately, for many years--following a majority of us from other message boards.

[Dustin]

Don't get to worried. We will all make it through these hard times.

[benny]

I would rather use a US based organization that doesn't use an odd way of measuring a cyclone's intensity based on gusts and kilometers per hour.

why would we care tho since kmh is the measurement that is used here.

Imagine the confusion if BOM decided to use mph on the advisories the average person would not know what to expect since kmh is what is used here in Australia.

converting is not difficult anyway

1 kt = 1.15 mph
1 mph = 1.6 kmh

its what I have done for years with tracking Atlantic Hurricanes and talking to u guys converting my terminology into US terminology

I'm rather intrigued that when it comes to things like windspeeds ANYONE uses anything other than kph ( or, perhaps, metres per second) . Sure, we've only had kph as the standard in mainstream Australia since the mid 1970's but the metric system has been the standard international system for scientific matters since 1875.

Heck, the US Congress adopted it as the official US system "except when the use of these units would obviously impair communication or reduce the usefulness of a report" way back in 1901!

104 years is enough time for at least those in the US with an interest in scientific matters like meteorology to get in line with the rest of the world and their own legislature, I reckon!

You can even take it back further. Thomas Jefferson attempted to introduce a variant of the metric system in 1789. In 1866 the international metric system was legally permitted in the US and in 1875 the US became one of the founding signatories of the treaty that established the International System of Units.

I notice that in prominent US scientific publications International units are almost invariably used. Just the amateurs who are reluctant to change, I guess. If the authorities are worried about people not understanding the metric system in warning broadcasts then surely they could just publish both figures for a while (as we did here when I was in my early twenties).

In fact, maybe members on a board like this could help to "lead the way", by standardising on the metric system when discussing such things.

Cheers

Rod

There is no push to metricize the US anymore. knots and miles per hour are all you are going to get! I would be shocked if it changed in my lifetime..

[wxmann_91]

Why are we arguing about units? Different countries/cultures, different viewpoints on the same thing. Geez.

[HurricaneBill]

The U.S. uses the metric system in the medical field.

[Ivan14]

For me knots and MPH are easier to understand the KPH.

[jimvb]

To me all three are equally easy to understand. kph, mph, and knots all measure wind speed. To me there is nothing in mph to recommend it. One mph is 5280 fph, which to me is not intuitive - there is nothing natural about the number 5280 and nothing to relate it to distance. Knots do have something going for them; a knot-hour (also known as a nautical mile) is a minute of the earth's surface. So 60 knots is a degree an hour. That's helpful for counting hours across a map ticked off in degrees. Kph is easy to deal with because there are no other units such as feet. There are only meters; kilometers, megameters, millimeters and so forth all are decimal parts of a meter. However, there is nothing significant about the length of a meter, except that it may have been 1/40millionth of the earth's surface. Better units, in my opinion, are feet and kilofeet (one foot = one light nanosecond) and nautical miles.

[Recurve]

A "knot hour"? That seems to be a contradictory unit, since a knot is one nautical mile per hour. A knot-hour, if there is such a thing, is certainly not "also known as a nautical mile."
A knot is not a distance measurement. A nautical mile is, and it's equal to one minute of arc, but only in latitude. For longitude (east-west distances), a nautical mile is one minute of arc only at the equator. As you go north or south, lines of longitude converge, and east-west minutes of arc get smaller and smaller. If you stand one foot from the north pole, a minute of arc east-west is a fraction of an inch.

There is something familiar about mph for most Americans because it's what cars use. You want to feel a 60 mph wind, get on the expressway and roll down the window.
MPH, feet and inches, miles, and degrees farenheit are so common here that it's hard to imagine changing in my lifetime. I'm aware of other units, of course, but I can't comprehend the temperature on a nice day being 25 degrees (or whatever 75 F is in centigrade).

[DoctorHurricane2003]

hrm...a knot-hour would just simply be a nautical mile, and a knot per hour would be an acceleration.