Colorado Power Outage Slightly Delays U.S. Official Time: NPR

Recently, a power outage at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado, caused a minor deviation in the official U.S. time. A severe windstorm led to the outage, impacting the systems that calculate the time used across the country.

Details of the Power Outage

On Wednesday, a destructive windstorm affected the NIST laboratory, which is responsible for determining official U.S. time. A backup generator failed during the incident, resulting in a 4.8 microsecond delay in the Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) provided by NIST. This discrepancy translates to just under five millionths of a second.

Understanding NIST UTC

NIST has been calculating the official U.S. time since 2007. The responsibility falls under the Commerce Secretary, with input from the U.S. Navy. NIST UTC is based on a weighted average derived from 16 atomic clocks at the Boulder facility. These atomic clocks, including cesium beam clocks and hydrogen masers, maintain exceptional timekeeping accuracy.

Clock Operation During the Outage

• All atomic clocks continued to function thanks to battery backup systems.
• The issue arose from a failed connection between the clocks and NIST’s measurement and distribution systems.
• Critical operations personnel restored power by utilizing a reserve diesel generator.

Impact of the Delay

NIST spokesperson Rebecca Jacobson mentioned that the 4.8 microsecond delay might not significantly affect the general public. However, it could pose challenges for critical infrastructure, telecommunications, and GPS systems. For specialized users, NIST offers access to alternate time-keeping networks and communicated the disruption effectively.

Restoration Efforts

By Saturday evening, power was fully restored to the NIST facility. Crews are currently assessing the damage and working to correct the minor drift in time. Supervisory research physicist Jeff Sherman noted that the significance of the drift varies depending on its application.

In conclusion, while the power outage at NIST caused a slight delay in official U.S. time, timely restoration efforts are underway to ensure accuracy is maintained across all relevant systems.