Question

On Monday, it snowed a total of 15 inches. On Tuesday and Wednesday, it snowed an additional 4.5 inches and 6.75 inches, respectively. A weather forecaster says that over the last three days, it snowed over 21.5 feet. Is this a valid claim?

Answer 1

No, this is NOT a valid claim.

Explanation:

We can sum up the total snowfall for the 3 days as:

`15"in" + 4.5"in" + 6.75"in" = 26.25"in"`

We know there are 12 inches per foot. So we can multiply the number of inches it snowed by this factor to find how many feet it snowed:

`26.25"in" xx (1"ft")/(12"in") =>`

`26.25color(red)(cancel(color(black)("in"))) xx (1"ft")/(12color(red)(cancel(color(black)("in")))) =>`

`26.25 xx (1"ft")/12` =>#

`(26.25 "ft")/12` =>#

`2.1875"ft"`

`2.2` feet of snow is nowhere close to `21.5` feet.