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Don't touch that clock! Rest of U.S. springing ahead to Daylight Saving Time
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Don't touch that clock! Rest of U.S. springing ahead to Daylight Saving Time

  • Dave Stokes/Flickr
  • Those parts of Arizona shown in brown will not shift to daylight saving time this weekend, but the parts of the Navajo Nation in the northeast corner of the state will shift, along with the rest of the country.
    National Atlas of the United StatesThose parts of Arizona shown in brown will not shift to daylight saving time this weekend, but the parts of the Navajo Nation in the northeast corner of the state will shift, along with the rest of the country.

Daylight Saving Time begins Sunday morning for most of the United States, but Arizona residents won't have to switch their clocks — we don't observe DST. Because who wants the sun to stay up for another hour in the middle of July? We'll be waiting — praying — for it to set, so things can cool off.

In the rest of the country, when the clock hits 2 a.m. on Sunday, they'll spring ahead to 3 a.m. So while most states — except Arizona and Hawaii — will see just a 23-hour day on Sunday, we'll have our normal 24.

The Navajo Nation, which extends into Utah and New Mexico, observes DST, while the Hopi Reservation does not, as it lies entirely within the state of Arizona.

After the DST spring forward, Arizona will be out of sync with the rest of the states in the Mountain Time Zone; we'll be observing the same time as California and other Pacific Time Zone states.

For those of you trying to schedule phone calls and Zoom meetings with business colleagues and family members on the East Coast, the time difference will be three hours, instead of the two hours it is in the winter.

And a quick reminder: it's "Daylight Saving Time," not "Daylight Savings Time."

A short history of time in Arizona

Arizona has a long on-again, off-again relationship with daylight saving time (DST).

  • March 1918: DST was established nationwide to save energy during World War I. Arizona complied, but some areas are in the Mountain Time Zone and some in the Pacific Time Zone.
  • October 1918: The U.S. returned to standard time.
  • March 1919: Country returned to DST, Arizona complied but again in two time zones.
  • October 1919: DST repealed.
  • 1921: Some Yuma County communities observed DST.
  • February 1942: The nation moves to "War Time." Arizona complied, again in two time zones.
  • January 1944: Arizona goes off War Time, though some Western communities stayed on and some interstate commerce continued to observe it.
  • April 1944: Arizona returned to War Time.
  • October 1944: Arizona returned to Mountain Standard Time.
  • April-October 1967: Arizona joined the rest of the nation in DST under the Uniform Time Act of 1966.
  • 1968: Arizona opted out of future participation in DST.
  • 1974: Arizona, with Idaho and Oregon, was exempted from a federal trial of year-round DST.
  • Today: Arizona and Hawaii, along with American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Northern Marianas and the U.S. Virgin Islands do not observe DST. Within Arizona, however, the Navajo Nation does.

— Salvador Rodriguez/Cronkite News Service

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