What is the time in Montego Bay?īeing only about eighteen degrees above the equator, the incredible island of Jamaica has not observed daylight savings time since 1983 and instead maintains a steady Eastern Standard Time zone GMT-5 all year long. Time zones are nice and easy on this island with Atlantic Standard Time GMT-4 being used all year round. What is the time in Punta Cana?ĭaylight savings time has not been used in the Dominican Republic since January 1974. Whilst much of the country uses Central Time Zones GMT-6, Cancun, in Quintana Roo uses Eastern Standard Time GMT-5. What is the time in Cancun?ĭaylight saving time was being used in Mexico but was removed in July 2022. Whereas, if you compare this with your Caribbean timezone, they will remain with the standard version. This is the advantage of using GMT and UTC since they specify the hours ahead instead of the time zone name.Īnother thing to look for is that Eastern Standard Time EST changes to Eastern Daylight Time once clocks change, and Atlantic Standard Time changes to Atlantic Daylight Time. Therefore, if you are traveling from a country that observes Daylight savings time DST, then you should be aware that you are an extra hour ahead even if you share the same time zone name. This does mean, that whilst some places like Florida and Jamaica both use Eastern standard time, for the part of the year, they will have an hour time difference because in the states they change their clocks, but in most of the Caribbean, they do not. In places where the days are long during the summer months, daylight savings allows people to change their clocks so that they can gain an hour of daylight during this period.īut does this apply in the Caribbean? Do they have the same need to lengthen their daylight by changing their clocks?Ĭountries close to the equator with lower latitudes, your favorite tropical destinations, generally do not need to use daylight savings time because the daylight throughout the year in these countries remains fairly consistent so there would be no real advantage to changing the clocks each year. It was put in place mainly so that countries could save energy. Do they use daylight saving time in the Caribbean?ĭaylight saving time may be slightly confusing for some but it does serve a purpose. This way, by entering a new time zone in the Caribbean, you can make the most of the daylight and really soak up some sunshine on the beach. These time zones are based on the earth's rotation and are established based on the amount of daylight that specific parts of the world get during different times. So whether you see UTC or GMT, you can safely determine that it is really the same time zone.Īnother common time zone in the eastern parts of the Caribbean is GMT-4 or UTC-4 which is known in the states as Atlantic Standard Time. Eventually the rest of the world began to use this system, shaping the time zones we know today.Eastern Standard Time which is common in the west Caribbean as well as the United States and Canada would be GMT-5 and UTC-5.
Other countries created their own standard times and, in the late 1880s, the International Meridian Conference proposed a standardised 24-hour day, starting off at midnight GMT.
However, in 1855, the Royal Greenwich Observatory started transmitting time signals and in 1880, the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) became the country’s official standard time.
In 1847, British railway companies began to standardize the time they were using by providing their staff with portable chronometers, resulting in what became known as ‘Railway Time’. A better system was required to enable an efficient operation of railways and new telecommunication systems. Since the time calculations were based on the position of the sun, they could vary by four minutes for each degree of longitude. In the nineteenth century, when mechanical clocks began to become popular, time was calculated locally. Time has traditionally been measured according to the position of the sun in the sky, which is different depending on where you are in the world.