By Nathan Ham
It’s that time of year again to set your watches and clocks back one hour and snag an extra hour of sleep with the end of Daylight Saving Time in the United States.
Daylight Saving Time (DST) officially ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning, November 3.
While the popularity of Daylight Saving Time has started to drop over the years, 48 of the 50 states in America still participate in springing an hour forward and falling one our back each year at the start and end of DST. Hawaii and Arizona no longer participate in Daylight Saving Time, neither do the United States territories of Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
You will notice that with the time change, it will get darker much earlier during the late fall and winter months. On Sunday, the sun will rise at 6:51 a.m. and set at 5:28 p.m. In total, the day length will be 10 hours, 37 minutes and 26 seconds. Days will continue to get shorter until the Winter Solstice marking the first day of winter on December 21. That day also marks the shortest day of the year with just 9 hours, 41 minutes and 39 seconds of daylight hours.
Daylight Saving Time was officially adopted in the United States on March 31, 1918, however, not every state or city at the time believed it was worth changing their clocks twice a year. The move was done in large part to aid farmers and other outdoor workers with more daylight to work with while also conserving energy in their homes.
It was not until the Uniform Time Act signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966 that standardized the “spring forward and fall back” time change rules to April and October of each year. That changed to March and November of each year in 2007 following a law signed by President George W. Bush.
Currently, seven states have passed legislation that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent, meaning no more “spring forward and fall back.” Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Nevada, Oregon, Tennessee and Washington. The states of Alaska, California, Iowa, Massachusetts, Texas, Utah and Vermont all have legislative bills currently pending. For any of these changes to take effect, the federal government would have to enact a law to make these changes permanent.
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