PST to EST

Both zones switch to daylight saving on the same days, the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November, so the gap never changes: PST (UTC−8) pairs with EST (UTC−5) in winter and PDT (UTC−7) pairs with EDT (UTC−4) in summer. People still write "PST" and "EST" year-round, and this page follows that habit, but the clocks above use the real offset for the date you choose.

The three-hour gap is why a 9 AM Pacific stand-up lands at noon in New York and a 5 PM Eastern deadline is 2 PM on the West Coast. Arizona is the exception on the Pacific side of the country: most of the state stays on Mountain Standard Time all year, so in summer Phoenix matches Pacific Daylight Time and in winter it is an hour ahead.

The overlap of a 9-to-5 day is 9:00 AM–2:00 PM Pacific, which is noon–5:00 PM Eastern. Teams split between the coasts usually anchor meetings between 10 AM and 1 PM Pacific so that nobody is eating lunch or packing up. Flights follow the same arithmetic: a 6:00 AM departure from LAX lands in New York around 2:30 PM local time after roughly five and a half hours in the air.

US stock markets open at 9:30 AM Eastern, which is 6:30 AM Pacific; West Coast traders start before sunrise for most of the year. Live television and sports are listed as "8/7c" (Eastern/Central) and air three hours later by the clock on the Pacific side, which is why West Coast viewers often see East Coast results first on social media.