Dear Tom,
As a British expatriate, I have often wondered why America hasn’t adopted the metric system.
Paul Mellor
Dear Paul,
The United States is the only industrialized country not using the metric system (the other two are Myanmar and Liberia). Several times over the past 150 years, the changover has been attempted, the most serious one beginning in 1975 after the last of the British Commonwealth countries adopted metric. At that time in the United States, beverages, pharmaceuticals, and even gasoline was measured in metric units, and miles and temperature were reported in both metric and British units. The changeover was largely ignored by the public, and the effort was abandoned in 1981. Since the late 1990s, airports worldwide have been required to report temperatures in Celsius. In the United States, readings are converted back to Fahrenheit for the public.
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Tom Skilling is chief meteorologist at WGN-TV. His forecasts can be seen Monday through Friday on WGN-TV News at noon and 9 p.m.
Write to: ASK TOM WHY, 2501 Bradley Pl., Chicago, IL 60618 or asktomwhy@wgntv.com (Mail volume precludes personal response.)
WGN-TV meteorologists Steve Kahn, Richard Koeneman and Paul Dailey plus weather producer Bill Snyder contribute to this page.
