Dear Tom,
What is Zulu time?
Travis Wagner, Eau Claire, Wis.
Dear Travis,
With the world divided into 24 time zones, each one covering 15 degrees of longitude, there was a need to have a reference point of time that the whole world could relate to. Since Great Britain was the world’s dominant maritime power when the concept of latitude and longitude was developed, Greenwich, England, was designated to lie on the Prime Meridian (0(degrees) longitude) in 1884. The Royal Observatory there was chosen to be the place from which all other time zones were measured, and this time became known as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). For easy reference, each of the world’s time zones was identified by letter, and the Prime Meridian time zone was assigned the letter “Z.” For the sake of clarity, the phonetic alphabet associates words with letters, and Zulu is the spoken identifier for “Z,” hence the name Zulu time or Z time.
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Tom Skilling is chief meteorologist at WGN-TV. His forecasts can be seen Monday through Friday on WGN-TV News at noon and 9 p.m.
Write to: ASK TOM WHY, 2501 Bradley Pl., Chicago, IL 60618 or asktomwhy@wgntv.com (Mail volume precludes personal response.)
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