Temperature Palindromes: Converting Between Fahrenheit and Celsius

As someone who’s spent time—and has friends—on both sides of the Atlantic, I’ve often needed to understand temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius.

Like learning a new language or switching between miles and kilometres, the best way is to immerse yourself in a new scale so you just know what 55°F or 24°C feels like. But if you haven't reached that point, it can be helpful to have a few conversion benchmarks.

Fahrenheit and Celsius Temperature Palindromes

These two temperature palindromes are handy markers for gauging temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius—and they’re surprisingly accurate:

82°F is 28°C
61°F is 16°C

I'm partial to a palindrome—a word or number that is read the same backwards as forwards—and as far as I'm concerned, it makes these two much easier to remember.

A couple of related points people shared with me, though some are less useful for the average weather forecast:

68°F = 20°C and 86°F = 30°C — useful benchmarks and 68/86 are palindromic
104°F is 40°C — almost a palindrome
11°F is ≈ -11°C (Actually -11.7°C.)
-40°F = -40°C

How to Convert Fahrenheit to Celsius (and vice versa)

The actual formula to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius is:

C = (F – 32) x 5/9

This is because:

The Fahrenheit scale starts at 32° higher than the Celsius scale. So, 32°F is 0°C.
The 5/9 means that each degree Celsius is just under 2 degrees Fahrenheit—it's actually 1.8°F.

This is why the basic conversion from Fahrenheit to Celsius that I use is "Minus 32, divide by 2" (which handily rhymes).

It's not perfect because each degree Fahrenheit is not quite half of a degree Celsius, but it's pretty close.

Using this simplified formula for the palindrome figures gives:

82°F-32=50, divide 50/2 = 25°C (it's actually 27.8°C)
61°F-32=29, divide 29/2 = 14.5°C (it's actually 16.1°C)

If you don't fancy some mental maths, using the palindromes is not a bad starting point. If you see a temperature around 61°F, you know it's around 16°C, and a temperature around 82°F is going to be around 28°C.

Hope it's helpful!