Time to "Spring" Forward - Daylight Saving Time Starts Tonight

Daylight Saving Time begins at 2 AM Saturday Night. Be sure and set your clock forward an hour.

Daylight Saving Time will go into effect this coming Sunday morning (8 March 2020) for essentially the entire nation -- the exceptions include Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and about 18 counties in Indiana. These changes have been mandated by the U.S. Congress in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which extended Daylight Saving Time across the nation, with the start on the second Sunday in March and end on the first Sunday in November (1 November 2020). In other words, following the old adage of "spring ahead, fall behind", you will need to turn your clocks ahead by one hour to conform with the local time observance. Most of Canada also observes Daylight Saving Time changes at the same time [National Research Council Canada].

What does this time change mean to you (other than later sunsets)? Contrary to a popular belief that has surfaced at times, the change from Standard to Daylight Saving Time does not add an extra hour of daylight to the day nor does it affect weather patterns. While the weather will not change because of the time change, the times when you will be able to obtain weather charts will now be one hour later. The reason is that the National Weather Service operates on "Z time" (variously called Greenwich Mean Time or Universal Coordinated Time) which does not observe Daylight Saving Time, and the charts are still produced and transmitted at the same Z time.

While many people want additional daylight after work, some health experts say that the change to Daylight Saving Time is hard on human health, as it affects the natural sleep cycle and circadian rhythms. Increases in sleep disorders, traffic accidents and heart attacks have been seen during the first several days after the time change.

(Article courtesy American Meteorological Society Datastreme Project)