Daylight Saving Time, a sure sign winter is nearing its end, returns March 10, 2024. Clocks will spring forward an hour at 2 a.m. that Sunday. As a result, March 10 will be a 23-hour day in the United States and several other countries around the globe.
The change, one of the earliest days possible for Daylight Saving Time to begin, is part of the longstanding practice to gain an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day.
Sunset will continue to fall about a minute later each day into the first week of July, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory.
Daylight Saving Time 2024 will end Sunday, Nov. 3. At 2 a.m. that day, clocks will fall back an hour. As a result, that day will last 25 hours.
Daylight Saving Time was initiated as an energy-saving measure in World War I and then again in World War II. Permanent daylight-saving time was briefly enacted by President Richard Nixon in 1974 following the 1973 oil embargo crisis.
The time change is fixed in federal law now, starting the second Sunday in March and ending the first Sunday in November.
In 2025, it will start March 9 and end Nov. 2. In 2026 it will start March 8 and end Nov. 1, the earliest dates it can start and end. In d027 it will begin March 14 and end Nov. 7, the latest dates it can start and end.
Critics question whether changing the clocks effectively saves any energy. Health experts suggest that switching back and forth can disrupt sleep schedules and affect individual health.
A poll conducted in 2020 by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that 63% of Americans favor ending seasonal time changes.
Two states, Hawaii and Arizona, already have done that, opting out of switching clocks to Daylight Saving Time.
The U.S. Senate unanimously approved the Sunshine Protection Act in March 2022 that would have made Daylight Saving Time permanent. The legislation died in the U.S. House.
Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican and advocate of eliminating Daylight Saving Time, introduced new legislation in March 2023.
“This ritual of changing time twice a year is stupid,” Rubio said then in a statement. “It’s time to end it.”
Similar legislation was introduced in the U.S. House. Both bills are pending in committees.
In Ohio, meanwhile, legislators in the Ohio House voted last fall to urge the federal government to end the clock changing practice. That bill is pending in the Ohio Senate.
Rep. Rodney Creech, a West Alexandria Republican, told cleveland.com then that Ohioans just want Congress to pick one or the other.
“I can tell you in our community, people say, ‘We just don’t want to change our clocks. We’re OK with Daylight Savings Time, we’re OK with standard time, we just don’t want to change our clocks,’” he said.
