Daylight Saving Time

[GordMay]

Daylight Saving Time:

The main purpose of Daylight Saving Time (often called "Summer Time") is to make better use of daylight. We (or, some of us) change our clocks (move forward) during the summer months, to move an hour of daylight from the morning to the evening. Approximately 70 countries utilize Daylight Saving Time, in at least a portion of the country. The only major industrialized country not to have introduced daylight saving is Japan. China has had a single time zone since May 1, 1980 observing summer DST from 1986 through 1991; they do not now.

Daylight Saving Time begins for most of the United States at 2 a.m. on the first Sunday of April. Time reverts to standard time at 2 a.m. on the last Sunday of October. In the U.S., each time zone switches at a different time.
Daylight Saving Time, for the U.S. and its territories, is NOT observed in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, the Eastern Time Zone portion of the State of Indiana, and by most of Arizona.

In the European Union, Summer Time begins and ends at 1 am Universal Time (Greenwich Mean Time). It starts the last Sunday in March, and ends the last Sunday in October. In the EU, all time zones change at the same moment.

Equatorial and tropical countries (lower latitudes) generally do not observe Daylight Saving Time since the daylight hours are similar during every season, so there is no advantage to moving clocks forward during the summer.

President Bush signed into law the Energy Policy Act, which extends Daylight Saving Time (DST) by four weeks from the second Sunday of March to end on the first Sunday of November. Extended Daylight Saving Time will begin in March 2007.

U.S. Daylight Saving Times
Year: Spring Forward - Fall Back
2005: 2 a.m. April 3 - 2 a.m. Oct. 30
2006: 2 a.m. April 2 - 2 a.m. Oct. 29
2007: 2.a.m. March 11 - 2 a.m. Nov. 4
2008: 2 a.m. March 9 - 2 a.m. Nov. 2
2009: 2 a.m. March 8 - 2 a.m. Nov. 1
2010: 2 a.m. March 14 - 2 a.m. Nov 7
2011: 2 a.m. March 13 - 2 a.m. Nov. 6

Daylight Saving Time map for countries:
http://www.worldtimezone.com/daylight.htm

[Sunspot Baby]

Indiana has voted to join the DST main stream. According to infoplease.com

"The battle between the old system and DST was contentious and hard-won—bills proposing DST had failed more than two dozen times in the past until it squeaked through the state legislature in April 2005. The old, familiar, bewildering system will remain in place for 2005; Indiana will join 47 other states in observing DST in April 2006."

Sunspot Baby
www.stateham.com/sunspotbaby