When does daylight saving time 2024 start and bring back an hour of sun?

You may want to go to bed a bit earlier this weekend as it's almost time to set your clocks forward as daylight saving time begins on Sunday, March 10.

Clocks will spring forward an hour at 2 a.m. Sunday morning, taking an hour of the night with it. In exchange, the sun will start setting around 7:34 p.m., giving you an extra hour of daylight.

But why do the clocks change twice a year? What is daylight saving time anyway?

Here's what you need to know.

Daylight saving time: The spring forward

As railroads and trains began to expand across the United States in the late 19th century, railroad operators and passengers encountered a problem; there were more than 144 local times in North America.

According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, this resulted in passengers arriving earlier than they left and missing their connections. The wacky time zones also resulted in train collisions as railroad companies struggled to coordinate.

In 1883, railroad companies began operating on a four-time zone system. In 1918, the Interstate Commerce Commission created the five time zones we know today: Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific and Alaskan.

In the latter half of the 20th century, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which codified standard time within the existing time zones and created daylight saving time.

Originally, daylight saving was set to start on the last Sunday of April and end on the last Sunday in October. Congress continued to tinker with it in the 70s, setting its start back to January 6 in 1974 and February 23 in 1975. After those years, its start went back to the last Sunday in April.

The start and end of daylight saving remained the same until the 21st century when Congress passed The Energy Policy Act of 2005. This moved the start date to the second Sunday in March and the end to the first Sunday in November, the system we still have today.

Federal law allows states to exempt themselves from daylight saving and stay on standard time year-round.

Whose idea was it?

While daylight saving time wasn't formally established until 1966, Benjamin Franklin suggested the practice in a satirical essay published in 1784. He peddled the idea to Parisians so they could change their sleep schedules and ultimately save money on candles and lamp oil.

Then, in 1907, an Englishman named William Willett penned a pamphlet titled "The Waste of Daylight" that advocated for advancing clocks in the spring and turning them back in the fall. He also encouraged people to get out of bed earlier during the summer.

How long does daylight saving last?

Since it runs from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November, it lasts under eight months. If you're a night owl counting down the days until daylight saving ends, it's 238 days from start to finish.

Do all states and territories observe daylight saving time?

Hawaii and Arizona are the only two states that don't observe daylight saving time. The U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, the North Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands also don't fiddle with their clocks twice a year.

In Arizona's case, state legislators decided they didn't want an extra hour of sunshine beating down on the state during its hottest months in the desert.

As for Hawaii and the territories, their proximity to the equator makes daylight saving irrelevant.

Is it "saving" or "savings"?

Many people refer to the practice as "daylight savings" with an "s," but the official term is "daylight saving" as in "to save daylight."

Columbus Dispatch reporter Shahid Meighan contributed to this story.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Daylight saving time 2024 is here. Time to 'spring forward' your clocks