Daylight Saving Time Happens This Weekend
The time change is happening this weekend so we broke it down with the history, how it works, why it’s there, and what exactly is happening.
By kmvq on November 3, 2017
Are we going on or off of Daylight Saving Time? Do the clocks go forward or backward one hour? When does it officially happen? We’ll break it down and give you some answers.
First up, thanks, Benjamin Franklin. He was working in France at the time he came up with Daylight Saving Time. He woke up early, 6am-ish, and noticed that the shutters of many people in town were closed to block out the light. He starting thinking, and figured that we’re wasting candles in the evenings, as well as wasting daylight hours in the morning. So why not change time, and make daylight work for us rather than waste it? Although, apparently his first thought wasn’t to change the clocks, but rather, you know, fire a cannon in the town to wake everyone up. Eh, trial and error.
It became really important during the first World War when we were burning coal at night to use for light, warmth, etc. If we had an extra hour of sunlight, we could save a ton of coal, which was important for other uses during the war.
What do we do, and when does it happen? Sunday morning, November 5th at 2am, the clocks will go backward by 1 hour. That effectively gives you an extra hour of night time (or an extra hour in the day Sunday, however you look at it). The downside is that the 6pm sunset now will turn into a 5pm sunset, which means you’ll be driving home in the dark. This also increases the chance of hitting a deer or other woodland creature, if those are common in your area. On the upside of the time change, you’ll have an earlier sunrise, so maybe, depending on your schedule, that might be fine. The earlier sunset has also been known to contribute to “SAD” (seasonal affective disorder), which is basically “winter depression.”
Now is also a good time to check all your smoke detector batteries, as well as testing them. Also, if you’re still using a bedside clock alarm/radio, change the battery in that too, in case the power goes out, it’ll keep the time for you when the power comes back on.
So are we “on,” or “off” Daylight Saving (no “S”) Time? DST is ending, so we will now be “off” of DST.
Source (it’s info from Maryland, but it’s great info so we used it).
