Daylight Saving Time 2018 in the USA: What Time Do the Clocks Change?

On Sunday, March 11, 2017 at 2 a.m., the clocks “spring forward” for Daylight Saving Time in the USA and it lasts until 2 a.m. Sunday, November 4, 2017. The time change always starts on the second Sunday in March each year and the clocks should be set to 3 a.m. once 2 a.m. rolls around (technically Saturday night). Cell phones and electronics should automatically reset. Any other clocks will have to be manually set. With the clocks being moved forward, this means that many will gain an hour of sleep. While the clocks “spring forward” in March, they “fall backward” for autumn in October or November each year. The end of daylight saving time is a set calendar date, as is the start of DST.

There are several states and areas that do not follow Daylight Saving Time and those include Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands, according to CNN. The state of Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation in the northern part of Arizona), unlike most of the rest of the United States, doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time, and hasn’t for about 40 years. Some are against the tradition of changing the clocks, according to CNN’s Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta, who stated that, “A CBS News poll a few years back (in February 2015) found that 23% of adults would prefer to have Daylight Saving Time year round, 23% would prefer Standard Time the full year, and 48% prefer to switch back and forth between the two.”

As reported by CNN, Daylight Saving Time may soon be a thing of the past, since more states are wanting to stick to the same time year-round. But, there are still others who enjoy the sense of tradition that comes with the changing of the clocks.

So, where does Daylight Saving Time originate from? CNN reported that the government started using “Daylight Saving Time” during World War I to copy the Germans, who were apparently doing it to save on fuel. The notion was pulled and then brought back again with the idea that it would somehow conserve resources. Daylight Saving Time just ended up sticking around after. One of America’s Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin, was the first to propose a type of daylight time in 1784, in his essay “An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light.” This was originally meant to be somewhat of a joke and wasn’t taken too seriously.

Even so, Huffington Post reports that versions of Daylight Saving Time started back in the 1800s with a New Zealander named George Vernon Hudson. He proposed the idea in 1895, but Germany and Austria-Hungary organized its initial implementation on April 30, 1916. The notion of Daylight Saving Time is sometimes incorrectly called “daylight savings time.” It is a mostly America and European practice.

If you go to bed before 2 a.m., you can always change the clocks before you go to sleep tonight to avoid any confusion when you wake. And, to check out what time the sun will now rise and set in your area, you can find a sunrise and sunset calculator here.