Alcohol thermometer to give a background for reading the scale. The range of usefulness of the thermometer is set by the boiling point of the liquid used. In the case of the ethanol-filled thermometer, the upper limit for measurement is 78 °C (172.4 °F), which makes it useful for measuring daytime, nighttime and body temperatures, although not for anything much hotter than these. Ethanol-filled thermometers are used in preference to mercury for meteorological measurements of minimum temperatures and can be used down to −70 °C (-94 °F). The physical limitation of the ability of a thermometer to measure low temperature is the
Six's thermometer lower (for minimum) than already recorded, in which case the relevant marker is pushed further. The markers thus record the furthest point reached by the mercury in each arm of the tube, and thereby the highest and lowest temperatures since the last reset. Typically the thermometer is reset every 24 hours to measure the diurnal temperature variation, the positions of the ends of the markers nearest to the mercury are examined. Their positions on the maximum and minimum scales show the highest and lowest temperatures encountered since the last reset. In a variation of design, some models have unsprung markers