Daylight Savings Time - starts late, ends late?

Factual Questions
1

Daylight Savings Time (DST) starts the first Sunday in April, two or so weeks after the vernal equinox, March 21. But it ends the last Sunday in October, five or six weeks after the autumnal equinox, September 21.

What gives?

Forget about getting rid of DST (subject of an IMHO thread) - why the difference? Since another thread points out that daylight times are equal when the day is equidistant from the equinox (e.g., 3/23 (2d after 3/21) has the same amount of daylight as 9/19 (2d before 9/21), then shouldn’t DST start around February 15, about five weeks before March 21? 2/15 should have the same amount of light as 10/28, right?

2

DST is most relevant fo routside activities. Would you more likely be outside in early October doing something or late February?

OTOH I definitely wuld favor moving the end of DST to teh first Sunday in November so the kids would have it for trick-or-treating.

3

True, but isn’t it also for saving electricity (and therefore money) by shifting the daylight hours?

Also, lots of people ski in February, and it would be great to have the extra hour on the slopes before the ski lifts close at 4:30.

And yes, it would be nice for the kiddies to have that extra hour to go trick or treating.

4

I’d like to be the first smart-ass to chime in here with the obligatory correction: it’s Daylight Saving Time, not Savings.

5

This is true but you were askign why it’s so not what would be best. I believe teh answer to your question is that DST much predates the wide popularity of skiing.

6

OK, you’re both right. I am a :wally

So, could the simplest explanation therefore be that it was set at the dates it was to benefit those very same farmers that Cecil was ranting about in his post on the subject?

Also, I’m a newbie. Is it improper form for me to answer my own question like I just did?

Anyway, why not be symmetrical about it now that we know better and change it to the dates I said? But I guess that would move this post to the IMHO section.

7

Huh?? Are you guys confused or something? Or is it just me?

Ending DST before Halloween means it gets dark an hour earlier, so you can go trick-or-treating sooner, and have an extra hour to round the neighborhood! At least, that’s what I always liked about it as a kid. Kids still trick-or-treat at night, right?

8

No, no - if you keep DST the extra week, the kids will get another hour of daylight. Nobody trick or treats in the morning. And since there’s a 5 out of 7 chance that Halloween is on a school day, this gives them an extra hour of daylight to go.

And no, little kids (3, 4) tend not to go trick-or-treating in darkness. Anyway, it’s better to go during the day so that there are less accidents when they cross the streets at night in their all black Batman costumes and whatnot.

9

Here’s my WAG (wild ass guess):

Since DST was enacted to save energy (it came at the high point of the fuel shortage in the mid-70s) the switching back to ST is delayed in the Fall in order to save on the energy businesses use on air condition in the afternoon.

You see, it’s cooler in the morning. During the hot season, the earlier you go to work and get home, the less energy the commercial sector will use on air conditioning (and air conditioning uses more energy than heating). Indeed, if at the Summer Solstice we went to work from 6:00 AM DST (just an hour after sunrise) to 3:00 PM DST instead of 8:00 AM DST to 5:PM DST, it would save a lot of energy in business’s late afternoon air conditioning (since the first few hours of daylight are much cooler than the first few hours).

Of course, we don’t ordinarily make that drastic a change in the majority of jobs. What DST does is make us all shift our schedules an hour earlier – but that’s a lot of people over a significant time, the savings in energy adds up.

But getting back to the dates of DST starting and ending… Just like the afternoon is warmer than the morning, the Fall is warmer than the Spring. And so if we mirrored the start of DST by ending DST two weeks before the Fall Equinox, it would be the end of the first week of September, where it’s still pretty darned hot in many parts of the U.S., still needing air conditioning in the afternoon. (You usually don’t need air conditioning in March.) DST ends with the the regular need for air conditioning.

That’s my take.

Peace.

10

A huge percentage of the US lives in the southern US, or along the west coast, where skiing is not possible. And, the vast majority of people where skiing is possible don’t ski.

11

No. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 started modern DST. It predates the oil embargo of the mid-1970s.

http://www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/general/daylightsavingtime.html

12

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 was an act of congress.

Need more be said?

13

Seriously, what is your point?

14

rfgdxm, I was half-kidding. :smack:

I think Moriah’s got something as to why it was started at the times it was regarding the electricity and the . However, since the amount of daylight was the same going back before March 21 as it is after September 21, the question still remains: why not enact it going back to February instead of starting it in April. Save more energy this way, no? Sure, it might not be a lot with no A/C running (although, as a counterpoint to rfgdxm, plenty of the country uses their A/C all winter long), but it would still save energy on lighting.

Oh, right. . . This was an act of Congress! :wally
But seriously, folks, any other info on this?

15

For more that you wanted to know:

Come learn the history of daylight saving, from Benjamin Franklin to the present…
"First there was standard time

For millennia, people have measured time based on the position of the sun - it was noon when the sun was highest in the sky. Sundials were used well into the Middle Ages, when mechanical clocks began to appear. Cities would set their town clock by measuring the position of the sun, but every city would be on a slightly different time.

The time indicated by the apparent sun on a sun dial is called Apparent Solar Time, or true local time. The time shown by the fictitious sun is called Mean Solar Time, or local mean time when measured in terms of any longitudinal meridian. [For more information about clocks, see A Walk through Time."

16

spingears, thanks for that site. Here’s a quote from it:
"Under legislation enacted in 1986, Daylight Saving Time in the USA

* begins at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of April and
* ends at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday of October

In most of the countries of western Europe, including the countries that are members of the EEC, Daylight Saving Time:

* begins at 1 a.m. GMT on the last Sunday of March and
* ends at 1 a.m. GMT on the last Sunday of October "

So, AHA! Europe at least is doing it one week more towards what I’m suggesting. However, nobody is starting it in February, where it logically should be. :frowning:

Another quote:
"Daylight Saving Time was changed slightly in 1986 when President Reagan signed Public Law 99-359. It changed Daylight Saving Time from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday in April. No change was made to the ending date of the last Sunday in October.

This was done ostensibly to conserve energy during the month of April. Adding the entire month of April is estimated to save nationwide about 300,000 barrels of oil each year."
The site also provides some info on countries around the world that observe DST. Another quote:
“Falklands Start: First Sunday on or after 8 September
End: First Sunday on or after 6 April
Paraguay Start: First Sunday in September
End: First Sunday in April”

So, AHA, AHA! These two countries get it right! They both start DST about the same amount of time before the equinox (two weeks) as they end it after. They end up with 7 months of DST. Ah, symmetry.

So, again, the question becomes, why not push it back further to February, when days are as long (or short) as they are in October, and save even more oil? That would make it 8 months of DST. Am I missing something? Is my logic off?

[SIZE=2]BTW, commasense, the site does describe the Saving vs. Savings question:

"The official spelling is Daylight Saving Time, not Daylight SavingS Time.

Saving is used here as a verbal adjective (a participle). It modifies time and tells us more about its nature; namely, that it is characterized by the activity of saving daylight. It is a saving daylight kind of time. Similar examples would be dog walking time or book reading time. Since saving is a verb describing a single type of activity, the form is singular.

Nevertheless, many people feel the word savings (with an ‘s’) flows more mellifluously off the tongue, and Daylight Savings Time is also in common usage, and **can be found in dictionaries.
**
Part of the confusion is because the phrase Daylight Saving Time is inaccurate, since no daylight is actually saved. Daylight Shifting Time would be better, but it is not as politically desirable."

So there. :wink: No, but really, you’re right. [/SIZE]

17

We fight ignorance, even your’s, so have at it. :wink: