it does execute correctly, given the relative precedence of the '<' and '?:' operators.

I checked, and < has a higher precedence than ?: as one
would expect.  For example, with $dHour = 5, this is
equivalent to:

$departmeals = 1 ? 1 ? "3" : "2" : 1 ? "1" : "0";

which should evaluate to "3" but evaluates to "1" instead.

The C language has no trouble with this construction:

sun-66% cat temp.c
#include <stdio.h>
main(){
    printf("%s\n",1 ? 1 ? "3" : "2" : 1 ? "1" : "0");
}
sun-66% cc temp.c
sun-66% a.out
3

I think the key here is not precedence, but associativity.  The ?: operator is listed as being left-associative which, I think, means your simplified example will be evaluated like this:

(1 ? (1 ? "3" : "2") : 1) ? "1" : "0"

which will, indeed, result in 1!

A right-associative ?: would be grouped as you expected, like this:

1 ? (1 ? "3" : "2") : (1 ? "1" : "0")

-- ergo, in C ?: must be right-associative!!

(As a side-note, operator associativity is listed in the operator precedence table with no real explanation of what it means, or link to such explanation -- perhaps this should be made a documentation feature request?)

This bug has been fixed in the documentation's XML sources. Since the
online and downloadable versions of the documentation need some time
to get updated, we would like to ask you to be a bit patient.

Thank you for the report, and for helping us make our documentation better.