What is the default timezone is set to in location settings? I could test the same on a 33 site and compare.
Also, what is the current setting for "force timezone" in location settings?
Here is a suggestion: go into your location settings, and try changing the default timezone to something else, and then change it back to what it was. Perhaps there is just something wrong with the way the timezone is set internally after upgrades. It is a long shot but a simple thing to try at least.
If these things don't work, it seems that going in at the code level and trying to add some debugging output might be necessary. At https://github.com/moodle/moodle/blob/MOODLE_33_STABLE/lib/moodlelib.php the code is:
If your OS is 64 bit and the time is correct on your server, then I believe that one of the parameters provided to the make_timestamp function could be bad. Or maybe get_user_timezone_object call is getting bad data. Maybe others have some better suggestions, but where I would go next is debugging within the above function.