Spring Forward: Some Facts About Daylight Saving Time

Courtesy of the Gateway Gazette

The time change begins on Sunday, March 10th, at 2:00 am, when clocks are moved forward by one hour, thus stealing an hour away (or taking back the one we got in the fall).

Why 2 am?

This time of day was chosen to be the least disruptive. Moving time forward or back an hour at that time doesn’t change the date, avoiding confusion, and most people are traditionally asleep. Those that do work on a Sunday usually do so later than 2am.

Does everyone observe daylight saving time?

In the States, Hawaii and most of Arizona don’t observe the time change. U.S. territories that don’t go on daylight saving time include American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

In Canada, the Province of Saskatchewan does not observe this time change. The city of Lloydminster, which sits on the Saskatchewan–Alberta boundary, and the immediately surrounding region in Saskatchewan observe the same time as Alberta and do observe the time changes. Along the Manitoba/Saskatchewan border, the small, remote Saskatchewan towns of DenareBeach and Creighton keep with the central time zone, as their larger neighboring Manitoba communities. In BC, part of the Peace River Regional District of BC (including the communities of Chetwynd, Dawson Creek, Hudson’s Hope, FortSt. John, Taylor and Tumbler Ridge) is on Mountain Time and does not observe the change. This means that the region would be on the same time as Alberta in the winter and most of BC in the summer. The same is true of the East Kootenay region of south-eastern BC (including the communities of Cranbrook, Fernie, Golden and Invermere). One exception in this region is Creston, which does not change meaning they are on the same time as Calgary in the winter and Vancouver in the summer. Southampton Island including CoralHarbour, in Nunavut, remain on Eastern Standard Time throughout the year. The eastern reaches of Quebec’s NorthShore (east of 63° west longitude) are in the Atlantic Time Zone, but do not observe DST. The effect is that in summer their clocks match those of the rest of the province, while in November, their clocks are rejoined by their Atlantic Standard Time neighbours. Although places east of 63° west are officially on Atlantic Time, local custom is to use Eastern Time as far east as the Natashquan River. Those communities observe DST, including all of AnticostiIsland, which is bisected by the 63rd meridian.

Why do we have DST?

The idea is to save electricity when we have more hours of natural light. Studies have shown the savings to be fairly nominal.

The idea came about in 1784 and was proposed by Benjamin Franklin, but this idea didn’t go far, that is until 1883, when the U.S. railroads instituted a standardized time for their train schedules. After World War II it was left up to each state to decide if they wanted to continue the tradition, and to set start and end dates. Congress enacted the Uniform Time Act in 1966, which standardized the beginning and end of daylight time for those states that observed it. In 1974 and 1975, the energy crisis motivated Congress to move to earlier daylight start times, which were reversed when the crisis was over.

Daylight saving time since then had always been in April—until the Energy Policy Act of 2005 ordered the earlier start time to begin in March 2007.

Canada joined the practice in the 1960s to keep consistent with our southern neighbours.