End of Daylight Saving Time 2024: When do I set my clocks back in the South Bend area?

SOUTH BEND — It’s still hot outside, but the days have been getting incrementally shorter as summer tiptoes out the door.

And before you know it, it’ll be time to get rid of Daylight Saving Time and “fall back” — that bittersweet day where you supposedly get an extra hour of sleep but lose 60 minutes of evening sunshine for the next four months.

Here’s what to know about the end of Daylight Saving Time 2024.

When do I set my clocks back?

This year, the big day will come on Nov. 3, 2024, with the time officially changing at 2 a.m.

Your phones should switch automatically, but you’ll still need to keep an eye out for analog clocks on your stove, microwave and in your car. That antique grandfather clock will need some attention, too.

Why on Earth do we do this?

“Falling back” will give everyone an extra hour of daylight in the morning. But it will also bring about excruciatingly short days.

In late August, the sun typically sets around 8:30 p.m. By late December, that will happen about three hours earlier .

Why do we have Daylight Saving Time in the spring and summer?

That idea of giving everyone more daylight in the evenings first came about in England in the early 1900s, and occasionally popped up in the U.S. during both world wars as an attempt to conserve energy .

It became permanent — with some exceptions — in 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act into law. It was meant to improve transportation schedules and make keeping track of the time easier as you traversed the U.S.

Then why do I still not know what time it is Indiana?

Indiana is one of the few states that falls in the middle of two time zones. Five counties in the northwest and five in the southwest run on Central Time, while the rest of the state adheres to Eastern Time.

The shifting times and resulting confusion has been fodder for so-called comedy for years. But don’t worry — it used to be even more confusing.

Years ago, only the counties on eastern time observed Daylight Saving Time. So for half of the year — between March and November — part of the state was ahead an hour. When November came, everyone was on the same time.

But in the mid-2000s, then-Gov. Mitch Daniels championed a law that put the entire state on daylight saving. That meant we all sprung forward in March and fell back in November, keeping us perpetually an hour apart.

Doesn’t this have something to do with farmers?

Nope. The misconception that farmers pushed for Daylight Saving Time so they could have an extra hour of light at the end of the day to finish their work has lingered for decades. In reality, farmers aren’t fans of it at all.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: End of Daylight Saving Time 2024: When do I set my clocks back in the South Bend area?