[tz] Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time

Paul Eggert eggert at cs.ucla.edu
Fri Apr 17 18:56:23 UTC 2015


On 04/17/2015 10:34 AM, Tim Parenti wrote:
> By the same token, it's reasonable that people in the Aleutian Islands 
> wouldn't associate themselves with Hawaiʻi!

There aren't too many people in Adak to ask (2010 census population 
326), which is not too surprising as it is an area affected by “frequent 
cyclonic winds with gusts in excess of 100 knots, fog storms, an average 
accumulated snowfall of 100 inches, earthquakes, a nearby active 
volcano, rain more than 260 days per year, and tsunamis, and in an area 
saturated with active bombs and infested with large rats".  See: Boliek 
B. Reforms may cut broadband to remote areas. Politico 2012-06-12 
<http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77350.html>.

I looked for local sources.  The Alaska Dept of Environmental 
Conservation uses "Hawaii-Aleutian time zone" with no abbreviation; 
e.g., see 
<https://dec.alaska.gov/spar/perp/response/sum_fy10/100111201/100111201_index.htm>.

The city of Adak itself doesn't seem to use any name or abbreviation for 
the time zone.

The English Wikipedia page for Adak gives the abbreviation "HST" for 
"Hawaii-Aleutian Standard Time"; this was inserted by a bot in 2007 (see 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adak,_Alaska&diff=162933653&oldid=159828785>) 
and nobody has changed it since then.

The U.S. Government Government Printing Office Style Manual (2008) says 
that the abbreviation for "Hawaii-Aleutian standard time" is "HST" and 
similarly "HDT" for daylight time; see p. 234 of 
<http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-STYLEMANUAL-2008/pdf/GPO-STYLEMANUAL-2008.pdf>.

On the net I find lots of sources using "HAST" and lots using "HST" for 
standard time in the Aleutians.  Many of the former sources seem to be 
influenced by the tz database, and to some extent that doesn't count.  
So it sounds like we should switch to "HST", as it's more 
official/authentic/whatever.  A proposed patch is attached.
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