National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Major Winter Storm Ongoing in the Upper Midwest; Severe Weather Tonight from the Mid-South to the Ohio Valley

A major winter storm will continue to bring blizzard conditions, heavy snowfall, icing, and strong winds through Monday across the Upper Midwest and Upper Great Lakes. A line of storms will be capable of producing widespread damaging winds, tornadoes, and some large hail from the Mid-South to the Ohio Valley and the Southeast through tonight, moving into the Mid-Atlantic Monday. 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