Daylight

Sunshine is in the forecast again today. Enjoy it while it lasts. Tuesday is the last day of the year with more daylight than darkness -- by about 30 seconds. The sun rose at 6:57 a.m. and will set at about 6:58 p.m., for a total of about 12 hours and 30 seconds of daylight.  But the length of daylight is shrinking by about 2 1/2 minutes every day as we move past the autumnal equinox toward the winter solstice. On Wednesday, the sun will rise a minute later and set about two minutes earlier, with daylight for about two minutes shy of 12 hours.

A medic unit that had rushed to the scene of the midday shooting in Belair-Edison sat idling in the street. With the dead man's body under a sheet, there was no one to transport. Word was spreading about 49-year-old Kelvin Moyd's being shot. Relatives came running down Pelham Avenue, visibly upset and too frantic to cry. Two women burst through crime scene tape. One was bear-hugged by a male officer, who had other officers come to his aid as he struggled to keep her back. Then a man came down the street and a group of people swarmed him before he could confront an officer.

Havre de Grace. -- Since last Sunday it's been darker in the mornings, but I've grown so mellow with the advancing years that it no longer infuriates me. Instead of cursing the darkness and those responsible for it, I just turn on the lights.So-called daylight saving time still seems to me basically a snare and a delusion, the equivalent of politicians legislating a longer day. It used to begin the last weekend in April, but now they've moved it up to the beginning of the month. Eventually, probably in an election year, I suppose they'll order it into effect all year round so they can boast about all the time they've saved for us.But no matter how they direct us to adjust our clocks, the sun and the big balls of dirt spinning around it in space won't pay any attention to them.

It's expected to be a bit too cold for it to feel like spring Sunday, but one sign that warmer days are ahead is here: For the first time this year, there will be more daylight than darkness. Since Sept. 26, the time between sunrise and sunset has been less than 12 hours , or half the day. The length of daylight continued to shrink until it was about 9 hours, 24 minutes around the winter solstice. But by Sunday, it will have grown again to about 12 hours, 2 minutes between sunrise at about 7:14 a.m. and sunset at about 7:16 p.m. The milestone comes a few days before the vernal equinox on Wednesday because of differences in latitude.

Daylight saving time will end this weekend, when clocks "fall back" one hour to standard time, starting at 2 a.m. Sunday. That means an extra hour of sleep for many. Maryland State Fire Marshal William Barnard is recommending that residents change the batteries in their smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors at the same time that they turn back their clocks. Barnard says that having working fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors can double a family's chances of surviving a home fire or instance of unsafe carbon monoxide levels.

Sure, the yearly switch to daylight saving time always puts some of us into a funk and a fog. It's true that it's harder to concentrate on writing that legal brief or counting out the correct change. It can't be denied that to the sleep-deprived, small setbacks can seem extra irritating. And, it's suddenly impossible to resist the salty bag of chips, sugary sodas and chocolate candy bar. But can the annual spring forward on daylight saving time actually be bad for our health?

It's expected to be a bit too cold for it to feel like spring Sunday, but one sign that warmer days are ahead is here: For the first time this year, there will be more daylight than darkness. Since Sept. 26, the time between sunrise and sunset has been less than 12 hours , or half the day. The length of daylight continued to shrink until it was about 9 hours, 24 minutes around the winter solstice. But by Sunday, it will have grown again to about 12 hours, 2 minutes between sunrise at about 7:14 a.m. and sunset at about 7:16 p.m. The milestone comes a few days before the vernal equinox on Wednesday because of differences in latitude.

Will your computer be ready when daylight-saving time comes? In case you didn't know, that will happen three weeks earlier this year, thanks to congressional fiat. Congress approved the change in daylight-saving time two years ago, to improve energy efficiency. Instead of starting on the first Sunday in April, as it had, this year it will start March 11, the second Sunday in March. The change is based on the belief that with one more month of "longer" days and more sunlight during waking hours, consumers will use less energy.

I was sure I'd missed it. You know, the "fall back" part of the "spring forward, fall back" time changing that we do every year. I was sure it got by me somehow. As we moved through the month of October, I kept looking for the little clock on the front page of my newspaper that reminds us that this is the weekend to turn the clocks back, but I never saw it. Turns out, we don't do it in October anymore. We do it during the first weekend in November, so yesterday was the big day. We did it in November last year, too, but it apparently didn't leave much of an impression on me because I spent all of last month waiting for that extra hour of sleep.

It would be easy to simply bemoan the end of daylight-saving time, to bellyache about big government telling us we must turn back our clocks early Sunday morning and become creatures of darkness. I've thought about doing that. True, there are disadvantages associated with the end of daylight-saving time. It gets late early, as Yogi Berra might say. Traffic accidents rise as our eyeballs adjust to the dark path home. Coinciding with this lack of light is a drop in temperature. The blackness and the cold remind us that winter is coming, and winter reminds us of death.

Forward. It's more than a presidential campaign slogan. It's also a directive on the second Sunday of March - this weekend - for clocks in the United States to move forward one hour under daylight-saving time. This means more afternoon sun. The official clocks of the United States government will change by an hour at 2 a.m. Sunday, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, which regulates daylight savings and time zones in the country. Clocks detached from today's omnipresent Internet will have to be changed manually - unless you are in the rare places in the United States, such as parts of Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and other island territories that don't prescribe to the change.

Daylight saving time will end this weekend, when clocks "fall back" one hour to standard time, starting at 2 a.m. Sunday. That means an extra hour of sleep for many. Maryland State Fire Marshal William Barnard is recommending that residents change the batteries in their smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors at the same time that they turn back their clocks. Barnard says that having working fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors can double a family's chances of surviving a home fire or instance of unsafe carbon monoxide levels.

Sunshine is in the forecast again today. Enjoy it while it lasts. Tuesday is the last day of the year with more daylight than darkness -- by about 30 seconds. The sun rose at 6:57 a.m. and will set at about 6:58 p.m., for a total of about 12 hours and 30 seconds of daylight.  But the length of daylight is shrinking by about 2 1/2 minutes every day as we move past the autumnal equinox toward the winter solstice. On Wednesday, the sun will rise a minute later and set about two minutes earlier, with daylight for about two minutes shy of 12 hours.

While today's vernal equinox may not mean precisely 12 hours of daylight, it does mark one of the two days a year the sun rises from due east and sets at due west. At the equator, one can see the sun passing directly overhead. On the North Pole, the sun skims across the horizon, starting six months of daylight, while on South Pole, six months of darkness begin.

Earth reaches vernal equinox at 1:14 a.m. Tuesday, but the days have been growing longer than nights since Saturday. The equinox, which of course marks the start of spring, is the point at which the Earth's axis is neither tilted toward or away from the sun. In the northern hemisphere, though, daylight and nighttime hours become equal a few days before the equinox. Friday got closest to 12 hours of daylight even, with sunrise at 7:16 a.m. and sunset at 7:15 p.m. This morning, the sun appears at 7:09 a.m. and stays out until 7:19 p.m. Enjoy the 12-plus hours of sunshine today.

It took a few tries to get daylight savings time to stick in the U.S. Benjamin Franklin estimated the idea would have saved 1 million francs per year in candles as a French diplomat in 1784, according to a report in the Library of Congress. The U.S. lagged Germany in adopting it as a wartime policy during World War I, and it was brought back for World War II. It didn't begin as we know it today until 1966. Don't forget to set your clocks forward tomorrow.

By defeating the statewide daylight savings measure the House of Delegates left the "time" question up to the individual towns and cities. Baltimore City has already determined that it will have daylight savings and Baltimore County will probably adopt the city's time. Westminster will vote on the issue on May 7, 1947. Other towns in Carroll County may use daylight savings time, from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in September. The result is bound to be confusing. Source: Democratic Advocate, March 7, 1947

WASHINGTON -- If Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., has his way, Americans will spring ahead earlier and fall back later."Additional daylight-saving time would let Americans play more softball and exercise outdoors, walk safely home from work, cook out with their families, use less energy and drive more safely," Mr. Markey has concluded.Hence: The Daylight Saving Time Extension Act of 1993.The proposed bill is brought to you by Mr. Markey and California Republican Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead, the same team that in 1986 successfully pushed to extend daylight saving time for three weeks in April.

Baltimore County firefighters have joined other officials in reminding the public to check the batteries in your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors this weekend when you change your clocks for Daylight Savings time (this Sunday at 2 a.m.). The firefighters suggest checking the batteries twice a year, in the spring and fall, when we reset the clocks. They say the smoke alarms are the best way of preventing house and apartment fire deaths. And carbon monoxide detectors can alert you to a deadly odorless gas produced by fuel-burning appliances.

Sure, the yearly switch to daylight saving time always puts some of us into a funk and a fog. It's true that it's harder to concentrate on writing that legal brief or counting out the correct change. It can't be denied that to the sleep-deprived, small setbacks can seem extra irritating. And, it's suddenly impossible to resist the salty bag of chips, sugary sodas and chocolate candy bar. But can the annual spring forward on daylight saving time actually be bad for our health?