As you clear the cobwebs that resulted from the shift to Daylight Savings Time, save some thinking power to consider the idea of going one way or the other – permanently. It can be an easy choice for individuals, but when deciding for an entire population things get tricky. The problem lies along the margins.
We’re on the eastern limits of the Central Time Zone, while across the lake, Michiganders are on the western limits of the Eastern Zone, and that’s where the extremes arise, especially during the summer and winter.
Here in Sheboygan, Daylight Savings Time means that a Summer Solstice sunrise, on June 20th this year, is at 5:07 a.m Central Daylight Time. But across the lake in Ludington, Michigan, the sun is up at 6:01, just 6 minutes earlier but an hour later on the clock, and currently their summer sunset doesn’t happen until after 9:30. If we go to full-time Standard time, our sunrise will shift to 4:07 a.m., meaning things would get noticeably brighter by 2:45, and our sun would set at 7:37 p.m. Ludington’s sunup and sunset would shift to our familiar hours.
Under Standard time, the Winter Solstice sunset on December 21st is at our familiar 4:18 p.m., and in Ludington it’s at about a quarter past five. Change that to Daylight Savings and our sunset is a comfortable 5:18 p.m., but then the sun doesn’t rise here until 8:19 a.m., pushing the work and school commute into darkness. Ludington, on the other hand, would get even further into the morning darkness with their sunrise not happening until 9:15 a.m…no doubt a hard-sell for many, which is why we probably won’t come to any decision soon.
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