In message
,
Tudor Hughes writes
On Jan 15, 3:03*pm, Graham P Davis wrote:
Paul C wrote:
Just a question

I was listening to a US radio station on medium wave (one of my
hobbies!) last night and they were talking about temperatures being
"30 below"

I had never been quite sure what they meant by this but looking at a
weather site the temperature for the area was being given as 1F. So I
presume "30 below" simply means 30 below freezing point.

Is that right?

In the UK, before we switched to Celsius, the phrase would have been "14
degrees of frost" for a temperature of 18F.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK. *E-mail: newsman not newsboy

To my knowledge the words "thirty below" in the USA mean
-30°F, i.e. about -36°C and probably refers in the present case to a
windchill temperature, though not necessarily.

Daily Mail website now quotes forty below which neatly coincides - I
haven't looked for the possible Robert W Service quotations.
--
Peter Thomas