Coming up on Sunday, November 7 — we alter our light and dark balance once again. Twice a year we play this game adding and subtracting to gain the extra hour of daylight. Back when the majority of our labor force needed to extend the workday, it made sense. Not really sure why we still follow this ritual. My vote — we swing to the extreme and add three hours so it stays light until 9pm. Not a big fan of waking when it is pitch dark and going home in the dark.
During late Winter we move our clocks one hour ahead and “lose” an hour during the night and each Fall we move our clocks back one hour and “gain” an extra hour. But Daylight Saving Time, DST (and not Daylight Savings Time with an “s”) wasn’t just created to confuse our schedules.
The phrase “Spring forward, Fall back” helps people remember how Daylight Saving Time affects their clocks. At 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March, we set our clocks forward one hour ahead of Standard Time (“Spring forward,” even though Spring doesn’t begin until late March, several weeks after the start of Daylight Saving Time). We “Fall back” at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November by setting our clock back one hour and thus returning to Standard Time.
Image: ©Karl Heine 2010
