It will soon be time for millions of Americans to turn back their clocks and get an extra hour of sleep in return.
As you may know too well, there will be a tradeoff, however. Darkness will set in earlier, meaning fewer hours of daylight.
Clocks will officially "fall back" at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of November, in accordance with federal law. This year, the date happens to be Nov. 5.
Under the conditions of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. On those days, clocks either shift forward or backward one hour.
Clocks used to spring ahead on the first Sunday in April and remained that way until the final Sunday in October, but a change was put in place in part to allow children to trick-or-treat in more daylight.
In the U.S., daylight saving time lasts for a total of 34 weeks, running from early-to-mid March to the beginning of November in states that observe it.
Some people like to credit Benjamin Franklin as the inventor of daylight saving time when he wrote in a 1784 essay about saving candles and saying, "Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." But that was meant more as satire than a serious consideration.
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Daylight saving time didn't become standard in the US until the passage of the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which mandated standard time across the country within established time zones. It stated that clocks would advance one hour at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in April and turn back one hour at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday in October.
Nearly every U.S. state observes daylight saving time, with the exceptions of Arizona and Hawaii.
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Like clockwork, we'll "spring forward" come March of next year.
In 2024, daylight saving time will take an extra day to return thanks to the leap year. It will resume on March 10.
