Morning may become Electra, but not me (sorry, Mr. O'Neill)

Welcome back to daylight saving time! And I mean that very sincerely. After all, it’s the mechanism that makes mornings a bit more bearable here on the eastern cusp of the Central time zone.

Sunrise, which announces itself through our south-facing bedroom window, has been creeping ever earlier since January. Last Saturday, it came at 6:11, but thankfully slipped back to 7:09 on Sunday.

The blazing Sun will again continue to wake us earlier each day from now until mid-June – and that’s OK, and as it should be. But being on the eastern edge of the time zone means that by then, which is to say June 13 and 14, the sun will be up at 5:14:40 a.m. Without daylight saving time, sunrise would be at 4:14, which even for a “morning” person is pretty early.

I’ve recently been working with a Scottsdale, Arizona-based company, which helps to put this whole switching back and forth thing in perspective. Except for the Navajo Nation, the state of Arizona does not observe daylight saving time. (For an interesting explanation of why, check out this ASU article; it boils down to avoiding the heat of the day). Suffice it to say, however, that even without making the switch to daylight saving time, the earliest that people in Scottsdale are awakened by the sun is 5:17:09 — which happens on June 11 — not quite as early as we in Chicagoland will be awakened two days later, when we will be spared the indignity of an ungodly early light of day only by the coming of DST.

I'm sure if I were a farmer, I'd have a different perspective. But I'm not, and I'm glad daylight saving time has once again arrived. (Wake me in an hour.)