Fall back! Daylight savings ends, standard time begins this Sunday morn, November 2, 2014

Tomorrow is October 31, and we all know what that means. Boo! No, no, not that. It means next weekend heralds the ceasing of the saving of daylight for 2014. Fall Back!

The holiday season is full blown upon us, now is the time of year to take the time to remember to turn back the hands of all the clocks in your home and your car (excepting the ones that are synchronized by the internet, like your cable box or cell phone) come this Sunday morning, ostensibly at 2:00 a.m.

Indeed, on the first weekend in November of 2014 almost everywhere in the U.S. and Canada, folks will re-program, rewind, and reset their chronological devices to agree to end the Daylight Savings offset and return to Standard Time. At 2 in the morning of Sunday, November 2, 2014 the correct time in each time zone of the two countries will move backwards one hour. The minute following 1:59 a.m. will be 1:00 a.m. The change back into Daylight Savings will occur on Sunday, March 8, 2015.

Have you ever wondered just why we all agree to change what is the correct time twice a year? What do we gain? The answer is light. Not lighthearted; actual light, sunlight. The result of the spring forward of one hour at the start of Spring, and the subsequent fall back in Autumn is less daylight in the morning, while more each afternoon. It gets dark later.

The original rationale for this, when this time change business was first proposed almost a hundred years ago, way back in 1918, was to give farmers and other workers more light longer into the day to do their farming and working. Nowadays, the best reason is to conserve energy, by needing less electric lights, but I’m not certain that really makes sense any more, what with our electrical and electronic devices running 24/7.

Since there is no overriding federal law in the United States, individual state decide for themselves whether to participate in the plan. Currently, the territories of Northern Marianas, Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands; the commonwealth of Puerto Rico; and the states of Hawaii and Arizona have opted out of Daylight Savings and remain on Standard Time all year round, although a significant portion of northeastern Arizona is part of the  Navajo and Hopi reservations and as such does observe Daylight Savings.

Fall Back!