Daylight Savings Time 2023: When to turn your clocks back this weekend

Who’s ready to fall back? Well, it doesn’t matter if you are or aren’t. Daylight Savings Time ends on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023, and we’re all going to gain an hour of sleep, rest, play, or whatever you want to do. Instead of the normal 64-hour weekend, we’re getting 65 hours this weekend, thanks to Daylight Savings Time ending.

So, when are you supposed to turn your clocks back? When the clock strikes 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 5, that’s when you’re clocks will be turned back to 1 a.m. Essentially, we all get a free hour, which is much better than losing an hour, which is what happens in the spring.

Unless you live in Hawaii, Arizona, Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, your clocks will be changing this weekend.

Why we gain an hour this weekend

Let’s talk about Daylight Savings Time! Every year on the second Sunday of March, most of the United States (along with other countries, too!) bumps their clocks forward by an hour to engage Daylight Savings Time (DST). That’s the fall back. During the spring, summer, and beginning of summer, Americans “gain” an extra hour of sunlight. Every year on the first Sunday of November, we set our clocks back an hour, reverting back to Standard Time (ST). That’s the spring forward.

For 2023, Daylight Savings Time started on Sunday, March 12, and lasts until Sunday, Nov. 5.

On March 10, 2024, we’ll move our clocks forward for Daylight Savings Time in 2024 and start this whole process over. Daylight Savings Time 2024 will end on Sunday, Nov. 4.

So, basically, we get an extra hour of sunlight at night during the summer, while observing that hour of sunlight in the morning during the winter months.

Daylight Savings Time started in the United States during and because of World War I with the passage of The Standard Time Act, according to the Farmer’s Almanac. Germany and Britain implemented the policy to try to conserve coal during wartime, and the United States adopted the strategy in 1918. It’s stuck ever since then, right? Wrong.

It was eliminated in 1920, but then it started again during World War II and lasted on and off again through the 1960s and 1980s, where efforts to make DST national were met with fierce opposition. Finally, in 1986, congress implemented a version of the DST policy, which 47 states followed. Hawai, Arizona, and Indiana were the only holdouts. According to Almanac, the modern-day DST policy started in 2007, and officially, Indiana joined the DST party.

Hawaii and Arizona are the two states that do not move their clocks forward by an hour in the spring.

Ask anyone why Daylight Savings Time exists and why we change the time twice per year, and you’ll likely get some answer about farmers getting an extra hour of light to farm in the summertime, but that’s actually not true. It’s a myth!