Foot per Hour to Meter per Hour
ft/s
m/s
Conversion History
| Conversion | Reuse | Delete |
|---|---|---|
1 ft/s (Foot per Hour) → 0.304800000001219188 m/s (Meter per Hour) Just now |
Quick Reference Table (Foot per Hour to Meter per Hour)
| Foot per Hour (ft/s) | Meter per Hour (m/s) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0.304800000001219188 |
| 5 | 1.524000000006096012 |
| 10 | 3.048000000012191988 |
| 50 | 15.240000000060960012 |
| 100 | 30.480000000121919988 |
| 500 | 152.400000000609600012 |
About Foot per Hour (ft/s)
The foot per hour (ft/h) is a very slow imperial unit of speed, analogous to the metric meter per hour, used when movement is so gradual that expressing it in miles per hour would yield impractically small decimals. One foot per hour is about 0.000085 mph or 0.000305 km/h. The unit finds use in geology (fault creep rates), materials science (crack propagation), and some industrial processes (extrusion rates, slow conveyor speeds). It provides a conveniently sized number when the phenomenon moves on the scale of feet per hour rather than miles per day.
Tectonic fault creep can be a few feet per hour during a slow-slip event. Industrial extruders may run at 10–100 ft/h.
About Meter per Hour (m/s)
The meter per hour (m/h) is an extremely slow unit of speed, rarely used in everyday contexts but useful for expressing very gradual movement — geological processes, biological growth, or slow industrial feed rates. One meter per hour is about 0.001 km/h or 0.00028 m/s. Glaciers move at roughly 100–3,000 m/h (0.1–3 m per hour is typical). Snails travel at about 50 m/h. The unit provides a convenient scale for phenomena that would otherwise require small decimals in m/s or km/h.
A garden snail moves at roughly 50 m/h. A glacier advances at 100–1,000 m/h depending on the ice sheet.
Foot per Hour – Frequently Asked Questions
Do tectonic plates actually move in feet per hour?
Tectonic plates move at 2–15 cm/year on average — far below even 1 ft/h. However, during episodic "slow-slip events" on faults (a kind of slow-motion earthquake), the fault face can creep at detectable rates closer to mm/day. True ft/h movement would be catastrophic — the San Andreas Fault creeping at 1 ft/h would translate to 2.4 miles/day, far exceeding any measured geological rate.
What industrial processes run at speeds measured in ft/h?
Metal extrusion (forming rods or tubes by forcing material through a die) often runs at 1–100 ft/h depending on the alloy and die profile. Some ceramic and glass fiber drawing processes operate in this range. Paper mill wet-end press sections can be as slow as 10–50 ft/h during startup. These speeds are slow enough that workers can safely observe and adjust the process manually.
How does ft/h compare to the speed of a melting iceberg?
Icebergs drift with ocean currents at roughly 0.5–1 km/day, equivalent to about 55–110 ft/h. Calving glaciers can lurch forward at thousands of ft/h during surge events. The famous 2017 calving of iceberg A-68 from the Larsen C ice shelf happened over a period of days — so its "speed" of separation was only a few ft/h at most.
Why would anyone use ft/h instead of just saying inches per day?
It depends on the magnitude. 1 ft/h = 24 ft/day = 288 in/day — for something moving a few feet per hour, inches per day becomes a large awkward number. Conversely, for very slow movement (0.01 ft/h = 2.88 in/day), in/day gives a cleaner number. Engineers choose whichever unit gives a value between roughly 1 and 1,000 to minimize leading zeros.
Is there any creature that moves at about 1 ft/h?
Sea stars (starfish) move at roughly 0.06 m/min, which is about 11.8 ft/h — surprisingly fast. Coral polyps and sea anemones are essentially sessile but can contract at a few mm/min. Some fungi extend their hyphal tips at 1–4 mm/h — about 0.003–0.013 ft/h. Slime molds (Physarum polycephalum), often used in computing research, can advance at up to 4 cm/h (about 1.3 ft/h).
Meter per Hour – Frequently Asked Questions
How fast does a glacier move in meters per hour?
Most valley glaciers advance at 20–200 m/h (0.5–5 m/day). Surge glaciers — which periodically accelerate — can reach 1,000–10,000 m/h for months at a time. The Jakobshavn Glacier in Greenland holds the record for the fastest sustained glacier flow at roughly 4,600 m/h (46 m/day). For context, that's still far slower than a garden snail.
How fast does hair grow in m/h?
Human scalp hair grows at roughly 15 cm per year — about 0.017 mm/hour, or 0.000017 m/h. Nails grow at about half that rate. At this scale, even the m/h unit is too large; growth biologists use mm/day or cm/month. The fastest-growing human tissue is bone marrow, not hair.
What moves at around 1 meter per hour?
Some lava flows on gently sloping terrain advance at about 1 m/h. Tectonic plates move at 2.5–15 cm/year — far below even 1 m/h. Bread rising in a warm kitchen expands at a few mm/hour. Corrosion front advancement in protected steel structures can be tracked in mm or cm per year.
Is m/h the same as m/hr?
m/h and m/hr are both used for meters per hour — neither is an official SI notation, since the SI symbol for hour is h (not hr). The correct SI notation is m/h. In engineering documentation, m/hr appears frequently as a stylistic choice, particularly in American engineering texts that prefer "hr" over "h" for legibility.
How do you convert m/h to mm/day?
Multiply by 24,000. One m/h = 1,000 mm/h × 24 h/day = 24,000 mm/day. This conversion is useful in hydrology (soil permeability is measured in mm/day) and biology (plant growth, wound healing rates). A glacier moving at 100 m/h would be advancing 2,400,000 mm/day — or 2.4 km/day, which is an exceptionally fast surge.