There’s a lot of chatter about Congress passing and then DT signing into law year-round DST. Are we going to repeat the failed experiment of 1974 that lead to several children being killed in the morning? Rumor has it that DT MAY be announcing his intentions about this this afternoon. Regardless, this may happen, like it or not, though individual states may be able to opt out. Keep in mind that this would help the golfing industry and DT is a regular golfer. Not only would it likely help his golf planning, it is being lobbied for by the golf industry. Follow the $!
This would not be good for wx enthusiasts or wx traders as it would mean models coming out one hour later than standard time all year long instead of just Mar-Oct. can you imagine having to stay up til 1AM CDT even in winter for most of the 0Z Euro to be released?!? :(
Joe Gatling, a golfer and a gardener, favors year-round Daylight Saving Time. “This would give me more opportunities … in golf [and] gardening]that is a little bit longer, so I’ll go for it,” said Gatling.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/president-once-again-calls-round-213659665.html
Larry, this is such an awesome topic that I'm glad to discover it again, scrolling down this morning.
Man, I hear you loud and clear on the weather models all coming in 1 hour earlier on standard time!
Maybe we should go backward and have reverse daylight savings time for all the meteorologists to get more sleep? Kidding!
I agree with your other point, however. DST in the Winter really messes up the early mornings, especially with children going to school having more darkness hours which increases the risk from them not being seen by vehicles before school.
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As a meteorologist, I have had something to say about this in the past.
Ideally, the time zone of any location is designed so that "solar" noon is within 30 minutes of local noon in their time zone.
For example, if solar noon is 12:45 pm, 45 minutes AFTER local noon in their time zone, then they should be in the next time zone later so that solar noon is at 11:45 am and 15 minutes closer to noon than the 45 minutes away from noon that they are currently.
However, there are other factors, the biggest one is that many states have a wide enough spread in longitude(west to east)so that the eastern parts belong in 1 time zone and the western parts in the next one later.
It makes most sense, however for the entire state to be in 1 time zone for business and other practical reasons.
IN is a good example where we use an exception. The entire state is on Eastern time, except the far southwest and far northwest sections.
The entire state of Indiana really should be on Central time but the gatekeepers wanted us to be on the same time zone as the East Coast.
I'll tell you why. Indianapolis, are biggest city in the middle of the state has solar noon at 12:41pm EST right now. This is 41 minutes from local noon. If they went to CDT, solar noon would be 11:41 pm and only 19 minutes from solar noon, which is 22 minutes closer.
When Indianapolis goes on CDT, solar noon is at 1:41 pm, a whopping 1 hour and 41 minutes from local noon. This is like having Daylight Savings time with 2 hours!!!
Which brings up another point. Each state is different regarding its relationship with the clock, solar noon AND SEASON.
Places farther north/higher latitudes have more extreme variations between night and day hours.
Places like FL or TX could get away with year round daylight savings time without the same very long times in the morning with delayed sunrises that the north experiences.
For instance, on the shortest day of the year, December 21st, the sunrise in Miami is 7:03 am EST.
https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/miami?month=12
In Detroit, however, the sunrise on that day is 7:58 am EST, almost an hour later. If we have year round DST in Detroit, the sunrise in Detroit on the shortest day is 8:58 am!!!
https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/detroit?month=12
This would mean kids in the Detroit area go to school in the dark from Nov-Feb.
Bismark, ND is even worse with a sunrise on December 21st of 8:26 am CST so year round DST would mean a sunrise of 9:26 am!!!
Those kids already go to school in the dark on DST in the early Spring and late Fall but that would just make it worse in the Winter.
https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/bismarck?month=12