Tonight is, with apologies to Stephen Hawking, an historic night in the history of time, here in Indiana at least.
For the first time in 30 years, the vast majority of Hoosiers will be changing their clocks tonight, making the “spring forward” into Daylight Saving Time that most of Indiana has resisted for so long. More here and here.
Technically, the switch occurs at 2:00 AM tomorrow morning — or, to be more precise, we jump directly from 1:59:59 AM to 3:00:00 AM, making tomorrow a 23-hour day. But of course, most people change their clocks before going to bed. (Don’t worry, though: the bars won’t close early. Heh. So tonight is your one and only chance — well, until next April — to be at The Backer until 4:00 AM!)
In previous years, the first Sunday in April has marked the effective transition from Eastern to Central time for most of Indiana. Technically, we always stayed in the Eastern time zone, but because we didn’t set our clocks forward and everyone else did (except Arizona and Hawaii), we would be on Chicago time from April through October, then switch back to New York time from October to April.
Not anymore. After a ridiculously contentious debate for such a seemingly insignificant issue, the Indiana legislature adopted statewide DST last year — and then, even more contentiously, St. Joseph County was forced to remain in the Eastern Time Zone despite county officials’ request to move to Central time. Here’s a Washington Post article about the Indiana time controversy that someone sent me a while ago.
A few counties to our southwest were granted their request to switch to Central time, so those counties won’t change their clocks tonight; they’ll simply slide from EST into CDT at 2:00 AM. But the rest of Indiana will spring forward.
All of which is a very long-winded way of saying: Don’t forget to set your clocks!
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Categories: South Bend, Michiana & Indiana
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April 1st, 2006 at 10:51:41 pm
Did you want EDT or EST/CDT?
Here in Las Cruces, we’ve always gone to MDT…and personally, I like the fact that sunset now happens at 7:26 tomorrow, as opposed to 6:25 tonight. (I’m much farther south than you are–any further south, and DST would be pointless because the length of day wouldn’t change that much.)
April 1st, 2006 at 11:01:26 pm
DST is lame…. thank you that is all.
April 1st, 2006 at 11:46:20 pm
Colin, I didn’t really care about Central vs. Eastern, but I am glad we’re adopting DST. Dane’s arguments re: lameness notwihstanding, it’s very annoying to have to consciously think about how many hours you are apart from New York or Chicago, instead of just instinctively knowing. This is particularly true with Chicago because it’s so close. Which of course was the argument for Central time, but I don’t care about being an hour ahead of Chicago, I’m just glad to always be the SAME number of hours apart from Chicago.
Of course, this also means we’re no longer always the same number of hours apart from Arizona. I liked being non-DST when Becky was living there. Now, though, it’s not as much of an issue. So really, this worked out very well for me. :)
April 1st, 2006 at 11:55:44 pm
And despite Dane’s fiat declaration of lameness, I’m happy to switch to DST. The extra hour of daylight in the evening is quite helpful to me in things like organizaing the after-work volleyball games in the summer, and not having to go to work while it’s still dark out is really nice for those in the North in the winter.
April 2nd, 2006 at 1:56:20 am
You guys really suck off The Backer.
April 2nd, 2006 at 3:02:55 am
Huh?
April 2nd, 2006 at 11:29:11 am
To the original post…actually, 2007 is the start of new daylight saving rules. (3/11 to 11/4)
See here.
April 2nd, 2006 at 3:42:35 pm
Brendan, I’m actually just the opposite. I didn’t care so much about DST, but I didn’t want to be on Central Time. That would mean the sun sets in the winter at about 4 pm. No, thanks.
Summer afternoons that last until 10 pm will be odd, but I can live with it.