When Daylight Savings Ends in 2024—Plus Why Some States Don’t Follow It
Get ready for more light to stream through your windows as daylight savings for 2024 draws to a close on November 3. Americans across the nation will get back one more precious hour of shut-eye next Sunday when the clocks “fall back” from their “spring forward” in March. Scroll to read more about the annual practice of advancing clocks and learn when you’ll need to adjust your analog.
Daylight Savings 2024 ends on November 3
The first Sunday in November is right around the corner which means it’s time for clocks across the United States to “fall back” one hour.
On Nov. 3, daylight saving time will end at 2 a.m. Residents of U.S. states that abide by daylight savings time will gain one hour of sleep with this clock adjustment.
“Having more of that light exposure at those earlier times is essentially better for our body’s rhythms than, you know, the opposite with daylight savings and having the evening light exposure,” Dr. Alaina Tiani, a clinical health psychologist and behavioral sleep medicine specialist at the Cleveland Clinic’s Sleep Disorder Center, told Fox 40 News.
Readers may recall the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s call to abolish daylight saving time in 2020. However, Congress has not taken further action to rid the U.S. of the practice which is overseen by the Department of Transportation.
Why does the Department of Transportation manage daylight savings?
It may seem strange for a department focused on federal transportation projects to be appointed the responsibility of daylight savings enforcement.
This assignment was born of the fact that time standards across the nation were first instituted by the railroad industry, which is managed by the Department of Transportation (DOT).
The DOT also superintends all the nation's time zones.
While the DOT oversees this practice of advancing clocks, current legislation does not require states to receive permission from the DOT to opt out of daylight saving time.
Which states skip daylight savings time?
Daylight saving time was enacted as a legal requirement by the Uniform Time Act of 1966.
The act allows states to exempt themselves from daylight saving time; however, they are not permitted to be on permanent daylight saving time.
The two states and five U.S. territories that do not observe daylight saving time are:
Arizona (except for the Navajo Nation)
Hawaii
American Samoa
Guam
Northern Mariana Islands
Puerto Rico
U.S. Virgin Islands
Why Arizona doesn't observe daylight savings
The overriding reason Arizona does not observe daylight savings is related to the state’s hot climate.
When Arizona lawmakers decided to stop observing daylight savings in 1968, they did so in the hopes of cutting energy costs.
Their thinking was such that the longer the sun is out in the evening—when everyone is in their homes—the more energy households would use during the high-temperature months.
This decision means Arizonians are in the same time zone as Denver from November to March but then fall behind Denver to Los Angeles time from March to November.
Why Hawaii doesn't observe daylight savings
Hawaii’s journey to opposing daylight savings is far more uncomplicated than that of Arizona.
The decision was made in 1967 with officials claiming that due to Hawaii’s proximity to the equator, the state would receive plenty of daily sunlight all 365 days per year. To them, there was no sense in disrupting residents’ schedules for a practice that would not benefit them.
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