Degree day

Degree day is a way to measure how hot or cold it is outside over a period of time. Imagine you wake up in the morning and it's chilly outside, so you put on a sweater. Throughout the day, the sun comes out and it gets warmer, so you take off the sweater. At the end of the day, you look back and think "I was cold for a while, but then it warmed up." Degree day is a way of measuring that difference in temperature over the course of the day.

To calculate degree day, you need to know the average temperature for the day. You take the high temperature (when it was warmest) and the low temperature (when it was coolest), add them together, and divide by two to get the average temperature. Then you compare that temperature to a base temperature, which is usually around 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

If the average temperature for the day is higher than the base temperature, then you had a "cooling degree day" because it was warmer than usual, and you might have turned on your air conditioning or fans to stay cool. If the average temperature is lower than the base temperature, then you had a "heating degree day" because it was colder than usual, and you might have turned on your heater or layered up with clothes to stay warm.

So, degree day is a way to measure how much we need to heat or cool our homes or buildings based on the temperature outside. It helps us understand how much energy and money we might need to spend on our heating or cooling systems.