Question about USA time zones and how the states are split

[Niconical]

Hello all.

I was actually browsing weather.com, finished there, bored, moved on, on again, and somehow I ended up looking at a map of US time zones.

Unless I'm reading it wrong, various states are split with a timezone line. A small corner of Texas for example seems to be on a different time to the rest of the state. Others like South Dakota seem to be split down the middle. Also, for no apparent reason there is a small section of Oregon that seems to be on Mountain time.

What's that all about? Doesn't that get confusing and/or annoying for the people that live near the line? :thinking:

I always assumed that US time zones were divided down state lines.

So, do any of you live just near these lines that split states?

Do you leave for work at 8.30am and arrive there at 8am?

Seems odd but I suppose you get used to it.

 

[mossyoak]

It can be confusing I live about 20 miles from the eastern/central split. And several people i work with and go to school with live in the central tomezone. Basically they don't use it tho, they work and go to school on eastern. So their watches are set to that.

 

[Niconical]

I was thinking that maybe people do that if they live close, just choose one or the other if you're often crossing the line.

 

[was.lost.but.now.found]

This is a very interesting question that I've never really had to ponder as I live well within the middle of the Central time zone, which for any non US citizens includes St. Louis, Chicago, New Orleans, and all major cities in Texas (Dallas, Houston, Austin, etc.) just to name a few.

 

[mossyoak]

Yeah you pretty much just pick which one your in most and stick with it. I'm in central today but going off eastern

 

[mattheww50]

Perhaps more confusing are the states that don't use Daylight Saving (sometimes called Summer Time). Arizona is in the Mountain Time zone, but because it doesn't use Daylight Savings Time, half the year it is on California Time. Just to add confusion, the Navajo Reservation in North East Arizona does use Daylight Saving time, while the rest of the state does not.

Portions of Indiana didn't use Daylight Saving Time until recently (2006).

Hawaii doesn't use it either, but they aren't in the same time zone as anyone else anyway.

 

[gswitter]

Portions of Indiana didn't use Daylight Saving Time until recently (2006).

...and the state is (or at least was) split by a time zone border.

 

[HarryN]

I grew up in W OH, not that far from the IN border. The time zones lines and "partials" were an attempt to join together regional communities that tended to share work and life hours. That being said, the slightly ackward time zones, shifting or not with DST, etc, didn't matter that much as a kid.

Once I grew up and saw the impact DST can have on a networked database interfacing to, and tracking time sensitive processes that are running during a DST time change, the impact hit home. :thumbsdow I don't write code, but I have sat through plenty of meetings with customers that had to deal with this.

Slightly off the original topic, but I would be happy to see us stop shifting the time each spring and fall - just leave mother earth to its natural cycle.

 

[was.lost.but.now.found]

I grew up in W OH, not that far from the IN border. The time zones lines and "partials" were an attempt to join together regional communities that tended to share work and life hours. That being said, the slightly ackward time zones, shifting or not with DST, etc, didn't matter that much as a kid.

Once I grew up and saw the impact DST can have on a networked database interfacing to, and tracking time sensitive processes that are running during a DST time change, the impact hit home. :thumbsdow I don't write code, but I have sat through plenty of meetings with customers that had to deal with this.

Slightly off the original topic, but I would be happy to see us stop shifting the time each spring and fall - just leave mother earth to its natural cycle.

It gets even worse with global systems; some parts of EU change daylight savings on a schedule different from North America, and we have to account for that as well on the systems I use at work.

 

[Eric242]

....just leave mother earth to its natural cycle.

I guess mother nature doesn´t care at all about our DST. She just moves on no matter if we get up an hour later during summer or not. I personally like the DST since I get see more daylight after work. Even though it might sound strange for a flashaholic :shakehead

Eric

 

[Starlight]

A woman in my wife's hometown wrote to the paper and said she didn't like DST because it put too much sun on her garden.

 

[Norm]

A very handy link Time Zone Check - Time Zones of the World
Norm

A woman in my wife's hometown wrote to the paper and said she didn't like DST because it put too much sun on her garden.

Daylight saving fades the curtains

 

[BigHonu]

In Hawaii, we don't adjust our clocks, and as mentioned earlier, have our own little timezone. No confusion here. However, not everyone understands that Hawaii is not a part of the Pacific time zone. We would periodically get calls at 5 a.m. on the weekends from telemarketers or pollsters calling from the east coast which is 6 hours ahead.

 

[LukeA]

Slightly off the original topic, but I would be happy to see us stop shifting the time each spring and fall - just leave mother earth to its natural cycle.

DST saves GJ of energy yearly due to reduced light and A/C use. Mother earth's natural cycle certainly appreciates that.

 

[KC2IXE]

I used to work for a company that worked in MANY time zones, 24x7. We had a very simple way - EVERYTHING in the database was in UTC. Even though almost everything in the company was translated to NY time (as that's were 90% of the work was done), we just did everything behind the scenes in UTC, and just did the appropriate conversions on the fly

 

[HarryN]

DST saves GJ of energy yearly due to reduced light and A/C use. Mother earth's natural cycle certainly appreciates that.

Hi Luke. I work from my home, and start at 5am each day, so there is no A/C or power savings benefit for me one way or the other. If DST saves so much energy, then lets just stay on that version and stop the switching.

Similar to was.lost, I work with a firm in Germany a lot, and right now, we are shifted from normal. For me, its actually better right now as there is more time zone overlap than before the switch.

 

[leeholaaho]

What would be the difference if it was split on state lines. If you live close to a state line and work in the other state it would pose the exact same problems if the state were split down the middle.

Where the split occurs is irrelevant

 

[Light Sabre]

And to add even more confusion in the mix, some countries are 30 minutes different than their neighbors. I think the reasoning is to be closer to 12 noon when the sun is directly overhead. Your sundial is always accurate that way when it's pointing due north. :nana:

 

[TorchBoy]

Is it China that has just one time zone instead of the many it "should" have?

BTW, one of our outlying islands is three quarters of an hour different from the mainland.

 

[nfetterly]

There are 2 pulp & paper mills that straddle the US / Canada Border - I used to work at one. Pulp mill in Canada, Paper mill in the USA - connected by pipe lines. Top of Maine - Madawaska.

The two mills are in different time zones. Working language in mill in Canada is French, English in the US mill - or it was 18 years ago when I was there & I don't believe it would have changed.

You needed to specify what time zone a meeting was in if you were having a joint meeting.