ORLANDO, Fla. – This weekend, many of us will happily welcome an extra hour of sleep as daylight saving time comes to an end and we turn the clocks back early Sunday morning.
But even though an extra hour is nice, you might be wondering “why are we still doing this clock-changing thing again”?
When is it time to turn the clocks?
Each year, most states (except Hawaii and Arizona) “fall back” an hour on Nov. 2, marking the end of daylight saving time.
The practice, which runs from March through November, is meant to give us more daylight in the evenings during the warmer months. That’s why many people would prefer to keep daylight saving time all year long rather than switching back to standard time each fall.
This weekend sunset will go from 6:40 p.m. on Saturday evening to 5:39 p.m. Sunday evening. And sunrises shift from 7:37 a.m. Saturday to 6:38 a.m. Sunday.
What would it look like if we stayed on Daylight Saving Time?
If we did stay on daylight saving time permanently, summer would look about the same with sunrises and sunsets staying the same.
The real difference would come in the early mornings during the winter. Without the fall time change, the sun wouldn’t rise until after 8 a.m. in the middle of the winter. We’d gain a bit more light in the evenings, but mornings would stay dark for much longer.
On the flip side, if we observed standard time all year, a lot of your summer evening activities would fall in darkness. The sun would come up much earlier, though, with the earliest sunrise at 5:27 a.m. in the middle of summer.
The latest summer sunset would be 7:27 p.m.
Is there a chance we permanently stay on Daylight Saving Time?
Florida Sen. Rick Scott introduced earlier this year the so-called “Sunshine Protection Act” which would make daylight saving time permanent.
He says Americans are “sick and tired of changing their clocks twice a year. It’s an unnecessary, decades-old practice that’s more of an annoyance to families than benefit to them.”
So while changing the clocks twice a year can feel inconvenient, the shift does serve a purpose. “Falling back” helps us “save” daylight in the summer while keeping winter sunrises from happening too late in the morning.