Time zone changes from version 2008g3 to 2009b1:
Date : Sunday 15.th. of March, 2009 1:30 CST
File : 2009b1.txt
Let's begin with the most urgent change. San Luis province in
Argentina has decided to revert their clocks one hour today
Sunday at 0:00 hour following Buenos Aires change as the eastern
part of the country leaving DST. Since San Luis is already
one hour behind Buenos Aires it will effectively be on Atlantic
time all year with DST like Chile.
Actually I predicted this kind of DST handling in the western
provinces of Argentina back in version 2008g3 of 21.th. of October
2008, but only implemented it for Mendoza, because they had made
legislation forbidding Mendoza to observe anything but GMT-3 and
GMT-4 (which Atlantic time is about). Since no other provinces
seem to follow this change I therefore have to revert Mendoza to GMT-3
all year like most other eastern provinces.
In reality this is a very logical idea, but should be implemented for
*all* the western provinces in my opinion. Quite simply, this is the
most proficient use of time for their geographical position.
There seems to be no decree or other official regulation on the San Luis
government web site, but in the press release below it says that San Luis
will start DST on the second Sunday of October 2009. That is a surprise
and perhaps a clerical error since the press release was only held this
past Thursday, so perhaps in the hurry they did not recognize that Chile
and Buenos Aires are not starting DST on the same dates in 2009 even
though they are ending DST on the same date (today). This apparent
anomaly is because the Chile DST is not defined as Third Sunday as
the Argentinian, but as the Second Saturday at 24:00 hours and that
happens to coincide this weekend but not for the 17.th/18.th of October
2009. I assume therefore that San Luis will in effect start DST the
18.th. of October 2009 at 0:00 instead of 11.th. of October 2009 as
Chile. If San Luis insists on following Chile when we get close to
October 2009 I will change the rule for them at that point.
And why do Argentinian time zone changes always get published 2 days
before they are in effect? ...
Thanks to Mariano Absatz for this information.
Links:
* Cuba ended DST on the Second Sunday of March 2009 instead of Third Sunday
of March as the tz database had guessed, but I made a better (or luckier?)
guess back in 2008a3 where Cuba changed DST to start Third Sunday of March instead
of Last Sunday of March, and I thought that they would not repeat it in 2009 but do
it as in 2007 with Second Sunday of March. I guess more luck than anything. Still
it meant that I did not have to make a new version when Cuba implemented DST
8.th. of March 2009.
* Vernon Cole contacted me back in November 4.th. 2008 to claim a free license for
the fact that West Wendover should be a separate time zone for Nevada since it
had been following Mountain Time instead of Pacific time since 31.st. of October
1999, following an application of the mayor of West Wendover Walter F. Sanders
back in January 1999, which was granted by the DOT (Department Of Transportation)
that also noted that West Wendover was already unofficially following Mountain time.
But since there was a history of following Pacific time in West Wendover, and
there was an official transition date, I thought it was relevant to add it as
a new time zone. Note that in the north many small cities on the border with Idaho
are also unofficially on Mountain time like the bordering Idaho state, but those have
supposedly "always" been on Mountain time, e.g. we have no transition date and they
can therefore follow the Idaho time zone directly. Thanks to Vernon Cole for
this information!
Links:
* Switzerland change of historical time 1940-1942. There was no DST in 1940
in Switzerland, and the DST start and end times were slightly off for
1941-1942. Thanks to Alois Treindl from http://www.astro.com for
this information.
Links:
* In Kazakhstan I got interested in a case when I was checking the timezone
map from Eric Muller (Adobe) and came to
the conclusion that he had the Kostanai (or Kustanai) area as part of the
Qyzylorda time zone although they are not even adjacent, but still on
comparatively the same longitude. The area of Kostanai I assumed was part of
the main area of Kazakhstan represented by Asia/Almaty. I am not sure where
Eric got his information from, but the story doesn't end here.
I found a russian astrology page http://zaytsev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=10571
that raises the issue that this so-called ZET 8 time is wrong. Here is a
translation from Google of the original russian article
=== Quote begin ===
Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:14 pm Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:14 pm
ZET Post: Temporary amendments to the ZET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help solve the dilemma with the definition of a temporary correction. I was born
in Kostanai area in November 1976. Some astrological programs, including ZET 8,
provide a temporary amendment +4 GMT. At the same time, Moscow is +3 GMT.
This means that the difference with Moscow entire 1 hour. But it never was.
The difference has always been 2 hours. And parents attest to the fact that the
difference with Moscow has always been 2 hours.
The program ZET 8 geo gives a sharp change of a temporary amendment to a very
long period:
01 Jan 0001 00:00 LMT +00:00:00 01 Jan 0001 00:00 LMT +00:00:00
02 May 1924 00:00 +04:00:00 02 May 1924 00:00 +04:00:00
21 Jun 1930 00:00 +05:00:00 21 Jun 1930 00:00 +05:00:00
01 Dec 1956 00:00 +04:00:00 01 Dec 1956 00:00 +04:00:00
01 Apr 1981 00:00 +05:00:00 01 Apr 1981 00:00 +05:00:00
In fact this change temporary amendment in 1956 is due to the change of time
zones. I can not find any information about the change of time zones in 1956,
although the time change occurred not only in the Kostanai region.
This tool, please, if anyone has information about this change of temporary
amendments of 1956, which legislation has been done? Even familiar to
consultants not able to answer that question. Do not mistake that caused
even if Spravochnikov coordinates of the first edition of Cities and temporary
amendments and continually reissued by different authors ... Let us find the
truth in this matter, as he stubbornly insist that the time of my birth at +1
GMT differs from the time in the program and is +5 GMT. I think if I would have
the rights to many "go" horoscopes ... But it is still "a friend of Plato me,
but the truth is more expensive ..."
=== Quote end ===
I guess you can't expect miracles from an automated translation. What I
understand from the email is that this person claims to have been born in
Kostanai in 1976 and that time there since has "always" been GMT+5 or rather
Moscow time plus 2 hours. This does not correspond to the Asia/Almaty time zone
but corresponds pretty well with the Asia/Qyzylorda time zone. The thread is
not faultless for instance another person grabs a part of the World Time
Explorer file Historic.txt and concludes that Astana was on GMT+5 from 1930
to 1991 while in fact the correct number is GMT+6
I know this is not authoritative information but I think it is sufficient to
act on and put the Kostanai region on Kzyl-Orda time until further information
appears, so I implemented the Kostanai region on the map as a separate time zone
but following Kzyl-Orda time always.
The mixture of Eric's map with the administrative regions however shows another
difference that I can't explain, see the following map:
The red borders are the time zones of his map. The black zones are the recent
administrative regions, as we can also see on this wikipedia map of the
Kostanai region:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Kost_obl.svg but Eric's map contains a
bite of the Astana area.
* New islands added in the Alaska Aleutian Islands timezones. Apart from that
many other islands were added or given a name for Antarctica, Bahamas,
Bahrain, Bangladesh, Canada, Chile, France, Greece, Greenland, Haiti,
Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, New York, Norway, Papua New Guinea,
Russia, Sierra Leone, Spain, Vietnam. In total there were 286 new islands
or existing islands given a name.
* To get the latest map you can either download the map separately from
the web site as "WTEmap.zip", but it is also included in the "tztables.zip"
download.
Note that there is a separate screenshot of the Argentinian time zones
you can see a close-up of the future time in Argentina from this Sunday
and forward.
