DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME: SPRING FORWARD ONE HOUR SUNDAY - Check/Change Batteries Smoke/Carbon Monoxide Detectors

(03/13/2021)
CHECK/CHANGE BATTERIES IN SMOKE/CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTORS

Daylight Saving Time starts in 2021 on Sunday, March 14. The clocks will spring forward one hour.

The tradeoff is that sunrise will be an an hour later — 7:10 a.m. on Sunday after it was 6:12 a.m. a day earlier.

During winter, each day has roughly two-and-half more minutes of daylight than the previous day, with sunset slightly earlier and sunset slightly later until the summer solstice on June 20. At that point, the sun will begin to set a bit earlier each day.

What is the history of Daylight Saving Time?

The modern idea of Daylight Saving Time was first proposed in 1895 by George Hudson, a New Zealand entomologist (the study of insects) and astronomer.

Some credit William Willett, an English architect, for first proposing the idea in 1907. However, it was Hudson who came up with the idea nearly a decade earlier after becoming annoyed with the little amount of daylight during the summertime, which was interfering with his study of bugs.

He believed that there must be a way to make better use of the day’s light by shifting the clocks by two hours in the summer and then two hours back in the winter.

However, when Hudson presented the idea to the Wellington Philosophical Society, he was ridiculed by many society members. Willett was also disregarded when he proposed a similar idea to Parliament in 1907.

Why do we spring forward during Daylight Saving Time?

Daylight Saving Time is a roughly century-old practice in the U.S. centered around making better use of the day’s light by shifting an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening.