How to read the UTC grid on a result page

One instant, many hour numbers

The large clock is your local civil time for the offset. The grid is the same instant formatted in other UTC offsets, using a fixed list of representative zones (Pacific/Honolulu for UTC-10, America/New_York for UTC-5, Europe/London for UTC+0, Asia/Singapore for UTC+8, and so on).

If it is 14:05 UTC+08:00 locally, the UTC+0 chip should show 06:05 on the same UTC date, unless the local date has already rolled. That is the check for “what time was that in UTC?”

These are not all the world’s zones

UTC-5 is not always America/Chicago. Chicago is UTC-6 in winter and UTC-5 in summer. The grid row labeled UTC-5 is “places currently using that offset in the sample zone we picked”, not “the United States”. If you need a city, name the IANA zone or the city. Do not send “UTC-5” without a date.

Two people, one URL

The grid does not lock the page to UTC. If a coworker opens the same /3-hours-ago link, their large clock is three hours before their now. Their grid is computed from their result. You have not shared an instant. You have shared a method.

To share an instant, copy one row (preferably UTC+0 or your local row plus the zone name) into the message. See the incident-note guide for the full stamp.

When a chip’s date differs

Near midnight, UTC+8 can be on Wednesday while UTC-8 is still Tuesday. The date on the chip is not a bug. It is the civil date in that offset. Copy the date with the time.