Ever wonder what UTC is? It is called Universal Time Code. No place in the world uses UTC as a local time code but many people all over the world use it for data sources and many other things. It is a universal time standard where the entire world, regardless of where you are, has the same time. Usually, recording time is connected to when the sun rises and sets (the rotation of the earth). With UTC, it seems to actually be connected to the flow of time itself, since it has no time zones or daylight savings time. It is simply constant.
UTC confuses many people especially when the USA conducts daylight savings time. For example, I live in the Pacific Time Zone. Daylight savings time ends on November 4, 2018, a little over 2 months from me writing this. 00:00 UTC is 5:00pm Pacific Time (17:00 Pacific Time), when daylight savings time starts on the second Sunday in March. But when daylight savings time ends on the first Sunday of November, since UTC does not change, 00:00 UTC will then be 4:00pm Pacific Time (16:00 Pacific Time)! This is why it can be very confusing for those who are not used to it. If you would like an even more detailed explanation, please CLICK HERE.
UTC is widely used among seismologists because dealing with time zones is next to impossible when locating earthquakes and phases across multiple time zones. This is why you must get acquainted with UTC if you are to accurately monitor seismic data.
Anything missing from this page? Please let me know!
UTC confuses many people especially when the USA conducts daylight savings time. For example, I live in the Pacific Time Zone. Daylight savings time ends on November 4, 2018, a little over 2 months from me writing this. 00:00 UTC is 5:00pm Pacific Time (17:00 Pacific Time), when daylight savings time starts on the second Sunday in March. But when daylight savings time ends on the first Sunday of November, since UTC does not change, 00:00 UTC will then be 4:00pm Pacific Time (16:00 Pacific Time)! This is why it can be very confusing for those who are not used to it. If you would like an even more detailed explanation, please CLICK HERE.
UTC is widely used among seismologists because dealing with time zones is next to impossible when locating earthquakes and phases across multiple time zones. This is why you must get acquainted with UTC if you are to accurately monitor seismic data.
Anything missing from this page? Please let me know!