How long until 3 PM?

Why a clock time countdown is different

A date countdown moves once a day. A clock time countdown moves every second, because 3 PM comes round again each day.

Looking up the time left to 3 PM is quick, but doing the sum in your head is easy to get wrong. This is especially true across noon or midnight. The page handles those cases for you.

Your local clock decides which 3 PM is next. A note under the number tells you when the target is tomorrow.

If you need an exact figure for a timer, use the seconds tile. For a rough plan, the hours and minutes on the main display are enough. Both are worked out from the same clock.

Think of the bar as a day laid out in a line. It starts empty just after 3 PM and fills until the next one.

Think of 3 PM as a moving target on a 24 hour loop. After it passes, the loop starts again. The page always aims at the next arrival and never at one in the past.

Working across time zones

Whenever 3 PM arrives for you, it is already past for places to the east. Places to the west are still waiting.

Fair deadlines look at all the clocks. The table shows who gets 3 PM at a sensible hour and who does not.

A few weeks each spring and autumn the gaps are odd. Countries change their clocks on different dates.

Your device decides which zone is used. If you travel, the page follows your clock. If you want another place, use the picker to choose a city and read its figure.

Using the countdown

Looking at the time left to 3 PM can change what you start. With a few minutes left, you might wrap up. With hours left, you might begin something bigger.

There are many reasons to count to 3 PM. It might be a train, a meeting, a break or the end of a school day.

People set alarms for 3 PM, but an alarm does not show how long is left. The countdown does. It lets you see the time shrink and decide how to spend what remains.

The page recounts when you return to it, so a tab left open catches up the moment you switch back.

No sign up or app is needed. Open the page, read the time left to 3 PM, and close it again. Nothing is stored about you, and the count is worked out in your browser.

Planning sleep around 3 PM? Take the hours left from the main display and subtract the rest you need. What remains is the time you have for everything else before bed.

Pick a city and the time left to 3 PM is recalculated for it. Pick another to compare.