Daylight Saving Time Begins Sunday

Daylight Saving Time begins at 2 a.m. Sunday. Make sure you turn your clocks one hour ahead before you go to bed Saturday night. (Otherwise you will be late for brunch Sunday!)

Has the increasing light in the morning been waking you up earlier each day? As the days grow longer, it is now time to make that sunlight count. We turn our clocks ahead an hour, giving us an extra hour of sun later in the day. We get a slightly darker early morning and a later sunset. 

Metro advises riders to take the time change into consideration when planning trips. When the clocks chime 2 a.m., they will then immediately become 3 a.m. and the Metrorail system will close.

Fire departments often remind residents that when they "spring forward" or "fall back" they also take a few minutes to check their smoke detectors.

The Huffington Post has some helpful history on Daylight Savings Time:

Brief History:

Benjamin Franklin has been credited with the idea of Daylight Saving Time, but Britain and Germany began using the concept in World War I to conserve energy, the Washington Post observes. The U.S. used Daylight Saving Time for a brief time during the war, but it didn't become widely accepted in this country until after World War II.

In 1966, the Uniform Time Act outlined that clocks should be set forward on the last Sunday in April and set back the last Sunday in October.

That law was amended in 1986 to start daylight saving time on the first Sunday in April, though the new system wasn't implemented until 1987. The end date was not changed, however, and remained the last Sunday in October until 2006