WE "FALL BACK" THIS WEEKEND

Written by: Brian Neudorff

For a person who wakes up extremely early during the week this may be one of my favorite times of the year. When we get to set our clocks back one hour or "Fall Back" so we can get an additional hour of sleep. Sunday, November 1 at 2 a.m., Daylight Saving Time ends in the United States.

Of course the opposite happens in the spring, which is probably my least favorite time of the year, when we set our clocks forward one hour or "Spring Forward" and lose that precious hour of sleep. That takes place on the second Sunday in March.

Daylight Saving Time was instituted in the United States during World War I in order to save energy for war production by taking advantage of the later hours of daylight between April and October. During World War II the federal government again required the states to observe the time change. Between the wars and after World War II, states and communities chose whether or not to observe Daylight Saving Time. In 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act which standardized the length of Daylight Saving Time.

Daylight Saving Time is four weeks longer since 2007 due to the passage of the Energy Policy Act in 2005. The Act extended Daylight Saving Time by four weeks from the second Sunday of March to the first Sunday of November, with the hope that it would save 10,000 barrels of oil each day through reduced use of power by businesses during daylight hours. Unfortunately, it is exceedingly difficult to determine energy savings from Daylight Saving Time and based on a variety of factors, it is possible that little or no energy is saved by Daylight Saving Time.

So don't forget Halloween night as you go to bed to to set the clocks back one hour or you will be an hour to everything you have to do on Sunday.