Daylight Saving Time in the vast majority of U.S. states will officially come to an end for the year this weekend.
Residents are reminded to set their clocks back one hour at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 5 in compliance with the time change. Only residents in Hawaii and Arizona will be unaffected as regions that don’t observe the practice. They may not be alone for long, however. According to a report in the Washington Post, Massachusetts and Maine are considering ending participation in DST and moving from Eastern time to Atlantic, as New England stretches several hundred miles farther beyond most states in the Eastern Standard Time zone. Indiana, which formerly also did not engage in Daylight Saving, introduced the practice in 2006, according to timeanddate.com.
About 70 countries worldwide use DST, according to the Washington Post report.
The clock changes each year on the second Sunday in March and rolls back to standard time on the first weekend in November. Standard time allows for earlier sunrise, meaning brighter mornings, but also, earlier sunset. According to timeanddate.com, full sunrise will take place at 6:21 a.m. the day of the time change in Benton, with sunset expected at 4:52 p.m. The days only get shorter from there, culminating at winter solstice Dec. 21, when the sun will rise at 7:02 a.m. and set at 4:40 p.m in Benton.
“In terms of daylight, this day is 5 hours, 3 minutes shorter than on June Solstice,” reads the report on timeanddate.com. “In most locations north of Equator, the shortest day of the year is around this date.”