National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Fire Weather Concerns in the Intermountain West into the Plains

Anomalously warm, dry and breezy conditions will bring elevated to critical fire weather conditions across portions of the Intermountain West into the Plains though early this week. Another elevated risk is possible across the central Appalachians. A rapid warm-up is in the forecast beginning Monday across the central and eastern U.S.. Read More >

 

Pictures from around western Colorado and eastern Utah
What is "Z" Time?

Since weather observations and forecasts are provided around the globe, it is important to understand when each piece of data is valid for. To overcome the problem of numerous time zones, it was internationally agreed upon that weather time stamps would be based on the Prime Meridian, or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Other names for GMT include Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) or "Z" Time.
In the Mountain Time Zone:

Z = MST + 7 hours
Z = MDT + 6 hours
or
MST = Z - 7 hours
MDT = Z - 6 hours


examples: 11 am MST = 1800Z (6:00 pm GMT)
or
1800 MDT (6:00 pm) = 0000Z (Midnight the next day GMT)

Map of World Time Zones