I live in Jacksonville, Fl, and got my 2004 Prius in mid-September. Here in northeast Florida the temperature occasionally dips below freezing at this time of year and the Prius's low temperature indicator comes on to tell me it's 37 degrees or lower. My question is, so what? Would anyone care to speculate about why this feature exists?
To advise you that the roads may be icy.
There's a wonderful way to eliminate that icon; it's called black tape.
Ever wonder why the snow icon is yellow?
So nobody will eat it?
Okay, that makes sense, but it's totally useless to me when I'm in FL--we only get freezing temperatures when it's extremely dry, so the only way the roads could be icy is if a pipe burst or something like that.
I wish there were something a tad more elegant!
Um, not until right now. ;-)
Icy condition warning. That's why the symbol is surrounded by two parallel lines representing a road. As a fellow Jax resident, I know it is irrelevent to us, but for people who live in Northern areas, it is an issue to know that the bridges could be frozen even though the road you're on isn't.
37 degrees is the point where bridges can freeze due to height differential effects.KK
Here in Minnesota water freezes on bridges faster because the underside of the road surface is exposed to cold air instead of connected to heat stored in the warmer ground. This is why a bridge can more quickly reach the point at which water freezes. The consequence of this is that one might suddenly transition from water to ice. With the cruise control engaged, that could be a fatal transition. The temperature at which water freezes varies only slightly with altitude so the bridges where Kevin lives must be higher than, say, the Rockies. Kevin, my favorite line from Pearl Harbor went something like 'that is bullshit, but it is very good bullshit.'
I was at the far end of a six-pack when I wrote that reply. Perhaps it was not as elegantly worded as I wished. By height diffencial I meant that the bridges are surrounded by the cold air on all sides, whereas the road is attached to the ground, which acts as a heat sink. Another poster explained it much better than my beer-besodded mind could have possibly generated at
11 in the evening.KK
You know we're now legally required to always say "Jacksonville, home of Super Bowl XXXIX" when referring to Jax, don't you? ;-)
Oops, please don't report me to the Superbowl Host Committee. I might lose my side-line pass!
KK
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