Daylight Saving Time ends this weekend; remember to set clocks back

We’re a little less than a week from the end of Daylight Saving Time for 2021, which marks when we turn our clocks back an hour.

Daylight Saving Time concludes at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021, when the clock will “fall back” one hour and in theory we get one extra hour of sleep.

Days continue to get shorter as many places are starting to see the sun set before 6 p.m.

Days will continue to get shorter until Dec. 21 when the winter solstice arrives. Then the length of days will begin to increase until the summer solstice on June 21, 2022.

The flip side is that the sun will rise approximately one hour earlier each morning. So while millions of people will now travel home from work mostly or entirely in the dark, their morning commute will include more daylight.

What time do we turn back the clocks?

Clocks officially “fall back” at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November to 1 a.m.

When did Daylight Saving Time start and when will it end in 2021

Daylight Saving Time started on Sunday, March 14, 2021 and will end on Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021 — a run of 238 days.

When does Daylight Saving Time start and end in 2022?

We next turn the clocks ahead on March 13, 2022 — 126 days after turning them back. Daylight Saving Time in 2022 will end on Nov. 6, 2022.

What is the history of Daylight Saving Time?

The concept dates back more than a century when English architect William Willett proposed the idea to change the clocks in 1907 in The Waste of Daylight. The suggestion of using daylight more efficiently can be traced to Benjamin Franklin. While visiting in Paris in 1784, he wrote a letter to the editors of the Journal of Paris calling for a tax on every Parisian whose windows were shuttered after sunrise to “encourage the economy of using sunshine instead of candles,” according to Michael Downing, author of Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time.

What states don’t observe Daylight Saving Time?

Hawaii and most of Arizona do not observe Daylight Saving Time. The time change is also not observed in U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Five states (Alabama, Georgia, Minnesota, Mississippi and Montana) have enacted legislation to make Daylight Saving Time permanent. Those changes, however, require federal approval. Others also have bills pending in state legislatures.

A pair of provinces in Canada — Saskatchewan and Yukon have adopted permanent daylight saving.

About 70 countries observe Daylight Saving Time. Most of North America, Europe and parts of South America and New Zealand adhere to it, while China, Japan, India and most countries do not.

It starts on different dates elsewhere. In Australia for example, Daylight Saving Time started Oct. 3.