Well, the time change is one of
the inevitable signs of spring.
And now that daylight saving time is here,
we are going to breakdown some of
the history behind it and also
what it means for you in terms of
that extra daylight in the evening.
However, the early birds have to pay a
price with slightly darker mornings.
Of course, that time change happened
bright and early Sunday morning.
And whenever you're watching this video,
whether it's on YouTube or WTO L11 plus,
we are now well underway with daylight
saving time and we're going to break
down the history and an overview.
Of what it means for you and some
signs of this spring season.
Let's break into the science and talk
about some of the impacts of daylight
saving time and also the origins
and the history of this phenomenon.
First and foremost,
how has it impacted our sunset time?
Of course,
with that loss of an hour of sleep
come some extra daylight in the
evenings and sunset time now at
737 after the time change.
Of course,
those lighter evenings are a sign
of spring and eventually summer
where we get those late evenings.
The price we pay though is in those mornings.
If you're an early riser or you
head into work well before 8:00 AM,
you are going to see more darkness in
the morning with 7:51 AM Sunrise Times.
There is some hope though.
By the end of March,
sunset is going to be almost 8:00 o'clock PM.
As we rapidly gain daylight and
our sunrise time,
it is going to get back earlier again,
7:18 AM.
So even though we temporarily
darken up in the morning,
I promise you we are going to
see some daylight before you head
into work by the end of March.
It'll just take a little bit of patience,
so let's compare the before.
And the after and what that time
change means for you and your
activities either before or after work.
Before the time change, Sunrise was at 6:52.
Of course,
we have lost a little bit of that
daylight in the mornings.
Now that sunrise goes to 751 and
sunset previously was just a hair
after 635 and now it is at 7:37 PM.
And that is to me the biggest impact
of daylight saving time is those
lighter evenings as we move forward
and eventually get to those seemingly
endless summer nights or sunset.
Time is after 9:00 PM for you
early birds out there though.
Sunrise time at 7:51 AM.
However,
the good news is we are gaining back
some of that daylight at a rapid pace.
In fact,
we're gaining almost 3 minutes per
day and that'll be a sign of hope if
you like that daylight before work.
Compare that to where we were a few
months ago in early to mid-december.
Remember those 5:00 PM sunsets?
Yeah,
it was pitch black by the time you
leave the office or have dinner
December 3rd all the way
through 13th, we had a 10 day
stretch where the sunrise time.
It was at 5:03 PM.
So we've made a lot of progress since then,
a sign of the spring season.
We're gaining almost 3
minutes of daylight per day.
And I want to show you that crescendo
of daylight as we go from the start
of the year in January with a little
over 9 hours of daylight and push
towards June and look at that,
we reach almost 15 hours
of daylight right now.
We're somewhere in between that
and of course this spring equinox.
Or in other words, translation,
equal day, equal night.
That is when we officially kick off
the spring season on March 20th.
And that reaches us right
at that 12 hour mark,
which is that second white line
in the middle June is when we
reached that peak daylight and
then the latter half of the year.
Unfortunately,
the roller coaster must go down as we
lose that daylight back towards December.
Now, one of the impacts of this daylight,
you may have noticed this actually
over the weekend we got some snow.
It is March Snow and March Snow
operates very differently.
It melts pretty quick.
Part of that has to do with the sun angle.
The sun's rays are a lot more direct than
they were back around Christmas time.
In fact, the sun is striking the earth.
Right now at a 47 degree angle,
and this may be a bit of a throwback to
geometry class or perhaps middle school math.
back in December,
the Suns rays were only at a 25 degree angle.
We've almost doubled that.
In other words,
the sun is more direct.
It melts the snow more quickly.
Even on an otherwise cloudy day.
March Snow doesn't last very
long because of the sun angle.
With that increasing sun angle,
we are seeing snow melt more quickly,
and that's a phenomenon that occurs whether
it's sunny outside or cloudy outside,
even on a cloudy day.
Some of that sun's heat still
pokes through the clouds and
melts away the snow on the ground.
And that's one of the reasons
that on a March day,
when it snows in the morning,
it can kind of melt away and evaporate
in the afternoon, even if it's cloudy.
All right, let's talk a little bit about
the history of daylight saving time,
because I know this is a
very controversial topic.
There are some who love it,
some who hate it,
and everything in between.
So I want to give you a few
seconds to answer these questions.
I'll step off screen for a second.
What year was daylight saving time
implemented in the United States?
You history buffs may find
this one interesting,
and it was over a century ago.
I'll give you a hint.
What year was daylight saving time
implemented in the United States?
The answer 1918 / A century ago.
I do want to break down a little bit of
the history and 1918 may ring a bell because
that occurred during the First World War.
DST started originally as a wartime measure,
and this might not be surprising
because the time change originated
as a means to conserve energy,
conserve electricity, and ultimately.
Conserve money during the war.
It didn't last long. However,
in 1919 it proved to be very controversial,
and there was a bit of a mess in the
United States government because the
different branches of the government had
different opinions on the time change,
and a congressional override
of President Woodrow Wilson's
presidential veto repealed it in 1919.
Only lasted one year.
That goes to show how popular or
unpopular daylight saving time was.
Now, after it was repealed,
there was a bit of a messy situation
because a lot of cities and states.
They essentially started
doing their own thing.
In other words, you could look
at one single state such as Ohio,
Michigan, Indiana,
and there were numerous different
clocks going on in the same state.
And of course that gets really confusing.
Let's just say you live in
Toledo and you work in Cleveland.
There could be a totally different
time within the same state.
So a lot of cities and states,
they started following their own
clocks and their own times after
daylight Saving Time was repealed,
and that caused chaos across the country
when you had a number of different times.
Going on at once,
I'll step off screen again for
another quick question on some of
the history of daylight saving time.
Which country was the first one
to enact daylight saving time?
I'll give you a few seconds to answer,
and I'll give you a hint.
It was not the United States,
although it did occur around that
early 20th century timeframe when
daylight saving time was enacted.
Alright,
the answer to that question is Germany.
Germany was the first country to enact
daylight saving time and wanna click.
We run through the history of how it started,
not just in the United States
but also worldwide.
Now this might not be surprising.
It was again you guessed
that a wartime measure.
Germany was the first country to
implement DST and the purpose was to
conserve electricity during World War One.
Whether or not that actually
occurred from the implementation,
well some scholars disagree on that.
And following suit as the second
country was Great Britain.
They didn't want their wartime enemy
to have something they didn't have.
So they followed suit and they
called it summer time.
Kind of interesting, isn't it?
Summer time.
When you think about those later
evenings and later sunsets,
maybe you think about summer,
but a different name for daylight saving
time is Great Britain implemented
it in the early 20th century.
Alright,
another quick question for you on
the history of daylight saving time.
True or false?
Benjamin Franklin,
one of the founding Fathers,
was the first one to propose
the idea of a
time change. Oftentimes,
Ben Franklin is one of the ones
that tributed for proposing.
And originating daylight saving
time in the United States.
However, that is a bit of a misconception.
Ben Franklin was actually
against daylight saving time,
and way back in the 1700s he was
one of the first people to actually
consider it and write about it as well.
Now, Ben Franklin was very
savvy and ahead of his time,
and he saw the value of using
the natural light from the sun
as a way to adapt our work,
adapt our lives,
and ultimately save money and
be more productive.
Now what Ben Franklin proposed
was changing our sleep schedules.
Not actually the clocks.
He wanted the clocks the same all year round.
So it is a bit of a misconception that Ben
Franklin was responsible for the time change.
However, he proposed adapting our sleep
schedules to what the sun was doing.
He actually wrote a paper where he
calculated the city of Paris alone
could save about $200 million by using
what he called the economy of sunshine.
Kind of another interesting name for it,
but a very savvy way of looking at
things and using that natural light
as a way to be more productive,
efficient and ultimately.
Save money.
Alright, another question for you.
True or false?
American farmers lobbied for the
implementation of daylight saving time.
Farmers have some various opinions
on daylight saving time.
Many of them are against it,
and it is again a misconception.
Most American farmers did not in fact
lobby for daylight saving time back
when it originated in the early 1900s.
Most farmers,
they were adamantly against it.
And from the farmers I've talked to today,
most of them still adamantly against it.
Again,
they base their schedules around the sun.
Sort of a natural circadian way
of looking at things,
not what the clock was doing.
And daylight saving time was actually
very annoying and frustrating
that the farmers early on,
they've waited an extra hour
to harvest hay in the morning
because with those later sunrises,
the dew was still on the hay.
In other words,
they had to start their work day and
hour later because there was still
due that they wait to evaporate
because the times had been changed.
And one last question for you what year
was permanent daylight saving time enacted?
This happened in 1974.
Remember how I talked about all
that chaos and commotion after the
1919 repeal of daylight Saving time?
Well,
after several decades of being
on different time standards,
they finally decided to make it law in 1974.
And a lot of folks nowadays in
the 21st century have proposed
for daylight saving time to be
ancient history and to just keep
it the same throughout the year.
I'm sure most of you watching
would agree with that,
but you're entitled to your
opinion on daylight saving time,
regardless of whether you're
pro or against it.
Now. One thing that the time change
does tell us is that spring.
Is almost here.
And if you're watching this one,
the Friday it's issued now we are
just three days away from spring.
That happens on March 20th,
and that's that Equinox I mentioned where
we reached that 12 hour mark of equal day,
equal night, and 12 hours of
sunshine on the first day of spring.
Our average high temperature
is going to be 50 degrees.
Boy, those warmer days don't they sound nice.
Thanks for tuning in for this week's
edition of Climate Friday newsletter.
Now that we are inching
closer to the spring season,
the WTO L11 weather team
will keep you updated.
If you're not already subscribed,
head to wtol.com/email and we'll have
more coming up in next week's edition.