National Weather Service United States Department of Commerce

Heavy Rainfall in Florida; Critical Fire Weather in the Southeast; Heavy Rain and Flooding Concerns in Hawaii

Thunderstorms and periods of heavy to excessive rainfall will continue over Florida through Thursday; and will begin to impact the central Plains today. Dry and gusty conditions will promote elevated to critical fire weather conditions in the Southeast. A Kona Low is expected to bring strong winds, widespread heavy rainfall, and flooding concerns to the island chain through the weekend. 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