Scott Craven and Weldon B. Johnson
Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described howdaylight saving time affects Arizona.
Most everyone in the United States losesan hour when they move their clocks ahead for daylight saving time every spring, and they get an hour back when they turn their clocks back in the fall.
In Arizona, we don't engage in such silliness because we don't participate in daylight saving time. Ourclocks remain the same.
It’s one of the few times Arizonansget 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 ourfavorite pastime from November through March because of the weather, but this daylight savingthing is something we can actually take credit for not having to deal with.
For Arizonait 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.
Daylight saving time:It affects Arizonans even though we don't observe it. Here's how
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.
More:How to figure out the DSTdifference between Arizona and the Navajo Nation
How daylight saving time affects Arizona
•When daylight saving time begins at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 13, 2022,clocks in most of the country are turned forward onehour to3a.m. When this happens,Arizona will bethreehours behind New York andtwo hoursbehind Chicago. Denver will be one hour ahead and even Los Angeles will be the same time as Arizona.
• Arizona sports fans have to account for daylight saving time, especially NFL fans. In September and October, football games that start at 1 p.m. on the East Coast come on at 10 a.m. here. Once daylight saving time ends in November, those games come on at 11 a.m.
• Shows will start lateron some cable TV networks. That's assuming you still watch at the scheduled timerather than via DVR or streaming.
Daylight-savingfacts
• Daylight saving time was ostensibly started to save energy, but it turned out people enjoyed having an extra hour of daylight after work. Exceptin 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.
More:How to figure out the time difference between Arizona and the Navajo Nation
• 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 datesto 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 adopteddaylight 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. It is supposed to promote unity, but tell that to those who live in the far west when the summer sun sets as late as midnight.
• If the U.S. observed the one-time-zone 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.
•The banning of the time-switch even has itsown (albeit small) movement. Hoping to unite people behind #LocktheClock, the site dedicated to freezing time (sort of) tracks statelegislation aimed at ending the spring-ahead, fall-back madness.
• Daylight saving time could be harmful to your health. A 2014 study led by the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center foundthe number of heart attacks goes up 24 percent on the Monday following the spring-forward. One theory is that the increased risk may be linked to that lost hour of sleep.
• More than 70 countries observe daylight saving time. No one is sure just how much daylight is saved, globally, each year, though physics indicates none.
• It is daylight saving time, not daylight savings time. So it is decreed by those who spend inordinate amounts of time policing words.(Update: It used to be daylight-saving timeuntil earlier this year, when Associated Pressstyle wizards largely banned the hyphen.)
