jq-tz.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

# set -v

export TZ=America/Los_Angeles
node -e 'console.log(JSON.stringify({date: (new Date).getTime()}))' | jq '.date/1000 | strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z")'
export TZ=America/New_York
node -e 'console.log(JSON.stringify({date: (new Date).getTime()}))' | jq '.date/1000 | strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z")'
export TZ=UTC
node -e 'console.log(JSON.stringify({date: (new Date).getTime()}))' | jq '.date/1000 | strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z")'

For posterity, according to https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man3/strptime.3.html

The %Z format specifier only accepts time zone abbreviations of the local time zone, or the value
"GMT".  This limitation is because of ambiguity due to of the over loading of time zone abbreviations.
One such example is EST which is both Eastern Standard Time and Eastern Australia Summer Time.

I believe this is cause of what I demonstrated above.

Can you show the inputs that jq is getting? Make it

node -e 'console.log(JSON.stringify({date: (new Date).getTime()}))' | jq '.date/1000 | (., strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z"))'

EDIT: Never mind, I can reproduce this.

jqlang/jq#1349

Thanks for the bug report!