Why state doesn’t observe daylight saving time

Daylight saving time 2021 ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 7.

Most everyone in the United States will gain an hour when they move their clocks back. In Arizona, we don’t engage in such silliness because we don’t participate in daylight saving time. For us, our clocks will remain the same.

It’s one of the few times Arizonans get to feel smug about how reasonable and rational we are compared to most of the country.

Feeling superior to most of the country is pretty much our favorite pastime from November through March because of the weather, but this daylight saving thing is something we can actually take credit for not having to deal with.

For Arizona it started in 1967, shortly after the U.S. adopted the Uniform Time Act, which set the guidelines for daylight saving time. Some wise Arizonans figured out there was no good reason to adjust our clocks to make sunset occur an hour later during the hottest months of the year.

We don’t want any more daylight, thanks

When you live in the desert, daylight is way overrated. In summer, anyway. Summer brings the kind of daylight surplus that results in plummeting demand. So no, we don’t want to save it. If we could, we’d ship it to the Southern Hemisphere. We’d trade it straight up for one 70-degree day in August. Just one.

If we moved to DST, summer sunsets would occur an hour later, prolonging our heat-based agony. If only someone would introduce the Daylight Spending Act, allowing us to move the clocks back an hour in May.

(Admittedly the earlier sunsets would also mean earlier sunrises, but the psychological effect could not be discounted.)

A part of Arizona does go with the time flow. The Navajo Nation makes the changes each year, ensuring that residents of the reservation (which spans Arizona, Utah and New Mexico) stay on the same schedule.

How daylight saving time affects Arizona

• When daylight saving time ends Nov. 7, Arizona is two hours behind New York, one hour behind Chicago, even with Denver and one hour ahead of Los Angeles.

• Sporting events outside Arizona will start an hour later. That means you’ll be popping a beer at 11 a.m. when the next NFL game starts.

• Shows will start later on some cable TV networks. That’s assuming you still watch at the scheduled time rather than via DVR or streaming.

Daylight-saving facts

• Daylight saving time was ostensibly started to save energy, but it turned out people enjoyed having an extra hour of daylight after work. Except in Arizona.

• The Navajo Reservation observes daylight saving time; the Hopi Reservation does not. The Navajo Reservation surrounds the Hopi Reservation, so if you drive from Flagstaff to Gallup through Tuba City and Ganado, you’ll change time on four occasions.

• Western Indiana used to be even more confusing as some counties and cities observed daylight saving while others did not. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 put an end to that foolishness.

• Be happy that in 1905, the British roundly ignored builder William Willett’s proposal to push clocks ahead 20 minutes each Sunday in April and roll them back in similar increments in September.

• The first use of daylight saving dates to July 1908 in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay), Canada. Despite the commercial possibilities, the city holds no daylight-saving parades nor sells “Birthplace of DST” shot glasses.

• The U.S. first adopted daylight saving time, called “Fast Time,” in 1918 in support of the war effort. It was repealed seven months later.

• On Feb. 9, 1942, Americans set their clocks an hour ahead and kept them there until Sept. 30, 1945. It was officially War Time, with zones reflecting the change (Arizona, for example, was on Mountain War Time).

• China may or may not manipulate its currency, but it does mess with the clock. Though spread over five time zones, China recognizes only one, Beijing time.

• If the U.S. observed the one-timezone policy (Washington, D.C., time, of course), the summer sun in Arizona would set as late as 10:42 p.m. and weather-related crankiness would hit an all-time high.

• In 1991 and again in 2014, a few lawmakers floated the idea of having Arizona join the daylight saving parade. Republicans and Democrats were united in their rejection of such a proposal, offering brief and shining moments of true bipartisanship.