11/01/2025
Time Change Tonight ⏰ — A Meteorologist’s Advantage - The new data will be coming in one hour early!!!! I LOVE IT!
Poll Question:
What’s your take on the end of Daylight Saving Time?
1) Love gaining an extra hour of sleep
2) Enjoy the earlier sunsets, also the earlier sunrises
3) Will miss the evening daylight
4) Wish we’d stay on one time all year
Tell me what you think — I’ll share some weather insights in the next few days on how the new LRC pattern is evolving right alongside this shift in sunlight.
Did you know that weather balloons are launched around the world twice a day — at 00z and 12z — to collect synchronized atmospheric data? Here’s what that means: Meteorologists use Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) — also called “Zulu Time,” which is why we write “z.” It’s the same everywhere on Earth, so when balloons go up at 00z (midnight UTC) and 12z (noon UTC), everyone is sampling the same moment in the atmosphere.
In the U.S. during Standard Time, 00z corresponds to 6 PM Central / 7 PM Eastern, and 12z corresponds to 6 AM Central / 7 AM Eastern. That’s why tonight’s switch back to Standard Time is actually a good thing for meteorologists — it means the 00z balloon data and computer model runs arrive an hour earlier for us locally. We get a head start analyzing the atmosphere and making better forecasts before the night’s over. Personally, I LOVE this time change and wish we would stay on this "fall back" time. The new data tomorrow will be coming in an hour earlier. But I’m curious… how do you feel about it?
