Time-change weekend

[Tom Wells]

I see it as New England, VT, NH, Maine, Mass, RI, and Connecticut not wanting to be an hour ahead of NYC.

If the divisions fell more within allowable (smaller) variations in longitude, there wouldn't be such disparities in sun time.
I'd like to see an adjustment of zones to more natural divisions, instead of the current politically orchestrated zones.



This would run the division of eastern/central at the Mississippi River and NYC would complain about daylight savings
"putting too much light in the morning hours".


New England would have to make a huge mental adjustment.

Politically I think there are too many people on the east coast to reuqire them to suddenly
accept the ridiculous overbreadth of the Eastern time zone as somehow "wrong", no matter how distorted
it has become.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

In the Eastern Time Zone, only the area from Columbus, OH west to the IN/IL border
is "wrong" (that is, west of where 82/30 W runs, and where Central time should begin).

Unless you possibly count a tiny area where ME juts east, all of New England is west
of 67/30 W and does lie in the Eastern zone.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I (and a lot of you) lived through DST in the winter of 1974; I was a freshman at the University of Georgia at the time and was going to my first class (9 AM) in the dark. I'd take year-round standard time (which we had in North Carolina until 1967, and you couldn't tell that much difference in sunrise or sunset) over year-round daylight time any day.

I remember going to school in the dark in 1974.

I like having more sunlight in the afternoon in October, though, but it sure comes at a cost in the morning.

Now I'll end up driving home when it's dark a lot. I could make adjustments, but I tend to forget. But libraries open at a set time, and Mike Huckabee airs at a set time.

 

[azumanga]

I see it as New England, VT, NH, Maine, Mass, RI, and Connecticut not wanting to be an hour ahead of NYC.

I read somewhere recently that the lawmakers in Maine wanted to relocate to Atlantic Time, just so they could be in tune with the Maritimes; however, there was a catch -- they won't observe DST if they switch time zones, resulting in being more in tune with Puerto Rico, which is also in Atlantic Standard Time year-round. Summarily, the idea was discarded.

 

[justpassingthough]

Perhaps this is a stupid question and I should more than likely know this from grade school, but since the Earth tilts towards and away from the sun during the different seasons, does this affect, even if its just minor, when daytime occurs? Obviously the time zones are dictated by the rotation of the Earth, but does our orientation towards or away from the Sun come into play at all?

 

[fybush]

It certainly does...that tilt is the reason we have less winter sunlight here in Rochester than they do in Miami (and hence why DST matters much more up here than it does down there)...and why there will soon be no daylight at all up in the Arctic for a few months.

 

[kc1ih]

Time zone boundaries are even screwier in Canada. The Maritime provinces are on Atlantic time, yet the Gaspe peninsula of Quebec, which extends east of most of the Maritimes, is on Eastern time. And then there’s Newfoundland, which is a half-hour ahead of Atlantic time. And the Canadian TV networks have a separate feed for each of the time zones except for Newfoundland.

 

[Markxxx]

Be glad you're not in China, it should be FIVE time zones and is officially now only one time zone for the whole country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_China

 

[anotherguyTN]

At one time wasn't the US considering double daylight time, which would push the clock ahead a second hour in the Summer? TO me that would be even worse.

One thing that seems ridiculous to me is how the time zone lines will split some states, including Tennessee where I live. It looks like it would make more sense to follow state lines as much as possible.

 

[KML0224]

I wonder how Maine's border with New Brunswick would be if it were just another state line? (It's presently the Eastern/Atlantic time line.)

 

[JackBauer112]

I just wish Obama would ask congress to revert back to the original DST from 1st Sun Apr-Last Sun Oct like it was from 1987-2006 because this new extension really screws up my sleeping habits as I'm fooling myself into believing it's 11:00 PM when it's only 10 PM, I really think the Energy Act of 2005 provision to extend DST sucks bad and I am hoping that we revert back to the 1987-2006 version. Thanks a lot Bush for causing this DST Extension.

 

[Markxxx]

At one time wasn't the US considering double daylight time, which would push the clock ahead a second hour in the Summer? TO me that would be even worse.

One thing that seems ridiculous to me is how the time zone lines will split some states, including Tennessee where I live. It looks like it would make more sense to follow state lines as much as possible.

You are basically correct, but there are reasons for not following state lines.

For instance, NW Indiana is economically and socially timed with Chicago.

Then you have a few places like Columbus, GA and Terre Haute, IN which lie on the border, and the people across the state line "unofficially" observe Eastern time

 

[Mario500]

Perhaps this is a stupid question and I should more than likely know this from grade school, but since the Earth tilts towards and away from the sun during the different seasons, does this affect, even if its just minor, when daytime occurs? Obviously the time zones are dictated by the rotation of the Earth, but does our orientation towards or away from the Sun come into play at all?

Do not negative toward yourself. I don't believe in stupid questions.

 

[firepoint525]

One thing that seems ridiculous to me is how the time zone lines will split some states, including Tennessee where I live. It looks like it would make more sense to follow state lines as much as possible.

I might agree with you, except that we are an east-west oriented state. Most states that are oriented north-south (with the exception of Indiana, of course) are all within one time zone. (At one time Morgan County here in Tennessee was split over central/eastern time. At some point they decided to go all on eastern time.) At least here in Tennessee, our time zone boundaries fall along grand division lines, with east Tennessee on eastern time, and middle and west Tennessee on central time.

 

[firepoint525]

The reason why many people hate DST is because the time zones are wrong. If you look at the original maps, Detroit is in Central Time, and so is Indiana.
Detroit automakers wanted to be in sync with New York City, so they petitioned to move into Eastern Time. Indiana did a similar thing. This means both Indiana and Michigan are an hour ahead of where they should be. So places like Detroit are in reality on DST year round.
When you add DST to Indiana and Michigan and other places that are "incorrect" they move two hours ahead of sun time

I did not know that about Detroit, but it seems to me that most north-south interstate corridors (the ones having odd numbers) are entirely within one time zone. For instance, interstate 75, which passes through Detroit, is entirely on eastern time. I-65, which passes through Nashville, is an exception, in that it is partially on central time, and partly on eastern time.

 

[firepoint525]

It certainly does...that tilt is the reason we have less winter sunlight here in Rochester than they do in Miami (and hence why DST matters much more up here than it does down there)...and why there will soon be no daylight at all up in the Arctic for a few months.

Are the days there so short in the wintertime, that kids would be either getting on the bus in the morning, or off the bus in the afternoon, in the dark no matter what time zone is observed? Here in Tennessee, we have almost 10 hours of daylight per day in winter months, and about 14 1/2 hours of daylight at the peak of summer. I am guessing that those extremes are even more extreme where you are.

 

[KML0224]

You'd notice the shorter day in Portland, ME compared to here near Hartford, CT...and they're only 200 miles to my northeast.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

I just wish Obama would ask congress to revert back to the original DST from 1st Sun Apr-Last Sun Oct like it was from 1987-2006...

Or would you go for the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October? At least then
the U.S. and Canada would be in synch with Europe. International airlines would love not
having these "stray weeks" at the beginning and end of DST.

BTW, there were several other "original DST" dates going back in years--for example, up to
the mid-1950s the common dates were last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in September.

Maybe DST really needs to be late March-late September, as that six month period closely
matches the spring and summer seasons. Of course, we'll get that right after we get MI, IN,
western OH, etc., moved to Central time!

 

[firepoint525]

I'd rather keep Halloween on daylight time. Actually, I would rather stay on daylight time all year.

 

[ixnay]

The reason why many people hate DST is because the time zones are wrong. If you look at the original maps, Detroit is in Central Time, and so is Indiana.

Detroit automakers wanted to be in sync with New York City, so they petitioned to move into Eastern Time. Indiana did a similar thing. This means both Indiana and Michigan are an hour ahead of where they should be. So places like Detroit are in reality on DST year round.

When you add DST to Indiana and Michigan and other places that are "incorrect" they move two hours ahead of sun time

I read a book on the history of DST and it was interesting how even Chicago wanted to move into Eastern Time. If you look at historical maps, you can see the time zone boundaries slowly creeping west

Where on the net can one find such maps?

I was in middle school at the time of the "emergency " switch to DST in Jan. 1974, and I remember seeing a map in The World Book Encyclopedia of the original ST zones in the US as they were in 1883, when ST was first adopted (by the railroads). It looked like the ET/CT boundary followed the OH/PA border.

ixnay