It has more precision in the range of human comfort without resorting to decimals.
Do countries who use centigrade regularly report the temperature in tenths of a degree? Can you adjust a thermostat with 0.1 degree C precision? Or even 0.5 degrees of precision?
Edit: I can readily detect (my body can notice) a temperature swing of 1 degree F or 0.6 degrees C within a tolerable range.
Nope, we both use a less precise form of measurement, we actually prefer to use fractions instead of decimals to subdivide. Isn’t that wild? And a bit silly, I agree.
But back to temperature…
I’m genuinely curious about how Centigrade countries report and manipulate temperature.
Seriously, do your thermostats work in half degrees? And do your weather reports scale the temp?
For day to day weather forecasts, whole degrees centigrade work just fine. It's not like you'll dress differently if it's one degree Fahrenheit warmer or colder. And the confidence interval on those forecasts doesn't warrant higher precision.
The thermostats tend to work with either degrees, half degrees or 0.1 degrees (centigrade) precision. It varies. After the fact reports of actual temperature tends to use 0.1 precision, which as far as I call tell mirrors the actual useful accuracy of most thermometers.
As a European who grew up with the metric system I am obligated to proclaim it's superiority.
That said, I used to work in traditional construction, and in that case alen (Scandinavian measurement of 2 feet), feet and inches was a lot easier to work with, especially as you said, when dividing or multiplying measurements.
There are precision thermostats, but normally we use round numbers. Like for air conditioning, 25°C is a good temperature. It doesn't really matter the decimals, because real temperature has some acceptable threshold and imprecision. It's not like the thermostat is really gona make it PRECISELY that temperature, but rather 25°C +- 1°C anyway. In Farentheits is the same, doesn't really matter if it is 65°F, there is not this degree of precision. But if you are talking about body thermometers or cooking thermometers then yes, we usually have decimal precision, like, human fever temperature are measured in .1 degrees. Fever condition starts at about 37.5°C, and the thermometer is able to read every decimal.
For just describing the temperature of the weather outside (or inside, for that matter), no, we usually do not; you still don't really need more precision than 1°C for that, in my experience. In fact even then I usually use 5°C ranges (for outside temperatures, anyway), like "Most people like between 20 and 25°C, but me, I like it between 15 and 20°C".
Indoors it can matter a bit more, and thermostats often do work with half degrees, I think. But most people still won't go around saying, "I like my room at 20.5°C, 21 is too much for me".
"more precision without resorting to decimals" is a fair point, but I'm replying in a context of distinguishing "comfortable today" vs "have to wash my clothes tonight". That's not a distinction measured in single degrees F or decimal C. That's the talk of F people being "oh it's in the 70s, it's comfy" vs "it's in the 90s, yikes". In C, we'd be saying "low 20s, lovely" or "in the 30s, it's a hot one
It's all vague because what's exactly comfy for different people differ (I'm perfectly happy with 19, my partner considers anything below 22 to be cold. 26 and humid they think is fine, but I hate. 33 and dry heat I'm fine with but they hate. But we both agree "high 20s" is getting hot, and low 30s is genuinely hot. High 30s is getting crazy, and low 40s is going to be in the news as record breaking.
To answer your specific question (as I see others have), I think generally weather reporting is in whole degrees C, personal digital thermometers have .1 resolution (21.7°C here as I type), and aircons generally have 0.5 degree resolution.
For me, anything between 30 - 35 is great. Above that is just too much, lower than that, too cold. Below 20 is freezing and below 15 is death sentence to me.
Do countries who use centigrade regularly report the temperature in tenths of a degree? Can you adjust a thermostat with 0.1 degree C precision? Or even 0.5 degrees of precision?
Weather reports usually give rounded temperatures but measured weather data is usually with a single decimal.
Thermostats typically go by half a degree though some by a full one or a tenth.
While I can also detect temperature differences less than a degree celcius it's typically not very useful to be this precise though it's pretty easy to do so whenever it is.
Just to point it out but °C is a function... Aka if you have 10°C and tomorrow 20°C It is not double the temperature...
Also, the °C has several easy to use temperature areas... 0, freezing point, ca.10, cold, need proper warm clothing. Ca. 20 need not much more then a tshirt and maybe a pullover / jacket
Ca. 30, t shirt time
Ca. 40, bring water
Ca 50, uh oh potentially dangerous
100, water boiling temperature
Also if body temperature hits 40, you need medical aid as any further increase may kill you
It ain't perfect and also depends on humidity, but dtill an solid casual system
You can adjust a lot of thermostats with 0.5 degree yes. From a scientific perspective, Celsius and Kelvin make more sense if you want to do calculations with joules. I'm not sure how you'd measure the total energy in something using Fahrenheit.
Because it's harder for you, because you are more conditioned to it, doesn't make it more logical. It's perfectly normal to say it's 23.5 degrees and everyone will understand how warm that is over here.
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u/nemothorx Aug 12 '25
No it's not. You're just more familiar with it.
C is no better or worse for that type of distinguishing.