What year-round daylight saving time would mean for Minnesota

Bob Dylan once said, "The Times They Are A-Changin'" but if lawmakers have their way, that won't be the case twice a year.

"Spring forward" and "fall back" are seasonal expressions that remind most Americans how to navigate daylight saving time. The controversial management of the clock is once again being debated by Congress. The U.S. House just voted to make daylight saving time permanent.

What would happen if daylight saving time was year-round?

"Nothing would change during the summer," said Mike Augustyniak, WCCO's director of meteorology. "But in the winter hours, the sunrise would be incredibly late in the morning, an hour later than it already is, and a similar (change) at night."

The latest sunrise in winter for the Twin Cities is 7:51 a.m. If daylight saving time were permanent, that would shift to 8:51 a.m. Up in Moorhead, the latest sunrise is around 8:12 a.m. It would shift to 9:12 a.m.

The western portion of Minnesota, especially northwest, would experience the latest sunrises and sunsets in the state.

As for the changes in the evening, the Twin Cities would see its latest sunset in December go from 4:34 p.m. to 5:34 p.m., giving commuters an extra hour of daylight.

"Because of the way the Earth tilts on its axis and rotates around the sun, everybody in the northern U.S. is really going to be noticing a bigger impact from this than, say, people from Florida, or Texas or southern California," said Augustyniak.

This type of change might sound familiar if you're in your 60s or older. That's because in 1974, an energy crisis led the U.S. to make daylight saving time permanent.

"And everybody thought it seemed like possibly a good idea to do it, until it actually happened," David Prerau said. The author has studied the time change extensively and wrote the book "Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time."

Prerau noted how people didn't like sending their kids to school in the dark, especially if they had to wait outside for the bus or lived in rural communities.

According to a report by History, a survey found that support for year-round daylight saving time dropped from 79% to just 42% in a matter of two months. 

"Even though it was popular before it actually started, once it started, it lost popularity very quickly," said Prerau.

Permanent daylight saving time was supposed to last two years, but it was repealed after just one.

There was a different kind of controversy about a decade earlier in 1965. At the time, cities and states were still allowed to decide if and when they wanted to implement daylight saving time. Minneapolis and St. Paul couldn't agree on when it should start.

"There was a short time, a few weeks, when St. Paul had daylight saving time and Minneapolis didn't," said Prerau. "And everyone that lived in the suburbs was very confused and even the people in the Twin Cities were very confused."

The next year, in 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which created set dates for daylight saving time nationwide. It mandated six months of standard time and six of daylight saving. In 1987, daylight saving time was extended to seven months.

The most recent change was in 2007, moving daylight saving time's starting date to the second Sunday in March and ending on the first Sunday of November.