As you know if you’ve ever checked out your stats, your WordPress.com blog is aligned with the UTC time zone. UTC is similar to GMT, except that it doesn’t get changed twice a year for daylight savings it’s based on the atomic clock and is therefore more precise. This method allows us to keep the stats database lean and fast. That translates into free stats for everyone!
Because of this, you will need to account for Daylight Savings Time manually. Believe it or not, it’s already time for the the “fall back” daylight savings change in the U.S.: tomorrow, Sunday, November 2.
To account for Daylight Savings Time, log in to your dashboard, click on Settings > General, and scroll to Timezone. Then change your timezone to one hour behind your actual time zone. If you have your timezone set to, for example, UTC-7 (PDT), you’ll need to change it to UTC-8. Think of it like taking a virtual vacation.
We’ll make another announcement before the “spring forward” change, which is on March 8, 2009.
UPDATE 11/02: This post now includes updated info re: UTC vs. GMT and a note that Nov. 2 is the Daylight Savings Time change date in the United States. Thanks for your comments.
