It may still feel like the peak of summer, but fall is just around the corner, and with it comes shorter days and longer nights.
Clocks are about to "fall back" an hour to mark the end of daylight saving time, but when exactly will the shift happen?
While the extra hour of sleep will be welcomed news for some, it will also be met with shorter days and more darkness, a trade-off that has long sparked debate across the U.S.
Here's a look at what we know about the end of daylight saving time for 2023.
When is daylight saving time?
Under federal law, daylight saving time begins on the second Sunday in March, and runs through the first Sunday of November in most of U.S.
This year, that date falls on Nov. 5, with clocks rolling back one hour at 2 a.m. that morning. While the sunset time will inevitably be earlier, the city is already receiving less than 12 hours of daily sunlight.
What is daylight saving time?
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Daylight saving time is a changing of the clocks that typically begins in spring and ends in fall in what is often referred to as "spring forward" and "fall back."
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.
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On those days, clocks either shift forward or backward one hour.
But it wasn't always that way.
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 United States, 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.
Germany was the first to adopt daylight saving time on May 1, 1916, during World War I as a way to conserve fuel. The rest of Europe followed soon after.
The United States didn't adopt daylight saving time until March 19, 1918. It was unpopular and abolished after World War I.
On Feb. 9, 1942, Franklin Roosevelt instituted a year-round daylight saving time, which he called "wartime." This lasted until Sept. 30, 1945.
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.
States could still exempt themselves from daylight saving time, as long as the entire state did so. In the 1970s, due to the 1973 oil embargo, Congress enacted a trial period of year-round daylight saving time from January 1974 to April 1975 in order to conserve energy.
Which states observe daylight saving time?
Nearly every U.S. state observes daylight saving time, with the exceptions of Arizona (although some Native American tribes do observe DST in their territories) and Hawaii. U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands, do not observe daylight saving time.
What happens in the days before and after daylight saving time ends?
Saturday marked the final time in 2023 that sunset will fall after 6 p.m., and it will be quite a while before we see that happen again.
In fact, sunset won’t fall after 6 p.m. again until daylight saving time resumes on March 10. Fortunately, the next 7 p.m. sunset will come soon after on March 17, according to the National Weather Service.
Days will continue to get shorter in the weeks ahead, with sunset scheduled for 4:40 p.m. when daylight saving time ends on Nov. 5.
The earliest sunset of the year will take place in early December, when the sun will dip below the horizon at approximately 4:19 p.m. While the sun will slowly begin to set later after that date, the area will still see less daylight through Dec. 21, when the sun will remain in the sky for less than nine hours and eight minutes on the winter solstice.
Our next sunset after 5 p.m. will finally occur on Jan. 28 of next year, according to officials.
What can you do to better adjust to the time change?
According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, there are some ways people can make the best of the switch to standard time next month.
Those tips include:
- Wait to change your clocks until it is time to get ready for bed.
- Go to bed at your usual bedtime.
- Just before getting into bed, set your clocks back one hour.
- Wake up at your standard wake time.
- Take note of how much better you feel after an extra hour of sleep.
- Continue to go to bed each night at the earlier bedtime.
What is standard time?
According to the website Time and Date, standard time is the local time in a country or region when daylight saving time is not in use.
"More than 60% of the countries in the world use standard time all year," the site says. "The remaining countries use DST during the summer months, generally setting clocks forward one hour from standard time."
According to the AASM, it's standard time that more closely matches our body's internal clock.
"The daily cycle of natural light and darkness is the most powerful timing cue to synchronize our body’s internal clock," the Illinois-based organization says. "When we receive more light in the morning and darkness in the evening, our bodies and nature are better aligned, making it easier to wake up for our daily activities and easier to fall asleep at night. Daylight saving time disrupts our internal clock, leading to sleep loss and poor sleep quality, which in turn lead to negative health consequences."
Do experts prefer daylight saving time or standard time?
Previously, proposed legislation pushed for permanent daylight saving time, but that legislation ultimately fell through.
Still, sleep experts have long questioned the health of daylight saving time.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has pushed for a switch to permanent standard time for several years.
This week, the group reiterated their stance on the subject.
“By causing the human body clock to be misaligned with the natural environment, daylight saving time increases risks to our physical health, mental well-being, and public safety,” lead author Dr. M. Adeel Rishi, who is chair of the AASM Public Safety Committee and a pulmonary, sleep medicine, and critical care specialist at Indiana University Health in Indianapolis, said in a statement. “Permanent standard time is the optimal choice for health and safety.”
Experts cited a "growing body of evidence" in recent years.
“Permanent standard time helps synchronize the body clock with the rising and setting of the sun,” Dr. James A. Rowley, president of the AASM, said in a release. “This natural synchrony is optimal for healthy sleep, and sleep is essential for health, mood, performance, and safety.”
The statement was signed by 20 medical, scientific, and advocacy organizations.
It also mirrors similar takes from other organizations, including the National Sleep Foundation, which said "seasonal time-changes are disruptive to sleep health and should be eliminated."
But, according to the Department of Transportation, daylight saving time has a number of benefits. The DOT's website highlights the following:
- It saves energy. During Daylight Saving Time, the sun sets one hour later in the evenings, so the need to use electricity for household lighting and appliances is reduced. People tend to spend more time outside in the evenings during Daylight Saving Time, which reduces the need to use electricity in the home. Also, because the sunrise is very early in the morning during the summer months, most people will awake after the sun has already risen, which means they turn on fewer lights in their homes.
- It saves lives and prevents traffic injuries. During Daylight Saving Time, more people travel to and from school and work and complete errands during the daylight.
- It reduces crime. During Daylight Saving Time, more people are out conducting their affairs during the daylight rather than at night, when more crime occurs.
Which is correct: daylight saving time or daylight savings time?
According to thesaurus.com, the correct answer is: daylight saving time.
"Daylight-saving time (singular saving) is technically the correct version: the practice is saving daylight," the website says. "Still, daylight-savings time (with the plural savings) is so commonly used that it’s become an accepted variant of daylight-saving time."
Thesaurus.com says the "s" at the end of the phrase may have caught on because the plural of "saving" is often used when referring to money -- for example, a savings account.
"Then there’s the question of the hyphen," the explanation continues, "Some leave it off while others include it. We hyphenate because daylight-saving together modifies the word time that directly follows."
