Daylight saving time: Here’s where mornings will be darkest after the clock change

On March 12, most Americans will lose an hour of sleep thanks to the switch to daylight saving time.

by Gianna Melillo | Mar. 09, 2023

Story at a glance

The United States is once again preparing to “spring forward.”

Though most of the country is making the collective shift, some regions will see later sunrises than others.

Dawn will come particularly late in some northern and western parts of time zones.

For much of the United States, mornings are about to get darker.

Come March 12, most Americans will “spring forward” into daylight saving time.

But depending on their locations within time zones, the sun will rise later for some than others. Anyone still out in New York City can expect the first rays of dawn to come around 7:10 a.m. Sunday, while those waking up on the other side of the Eastern Time Zone in Indianapolis, Ind., will still be in the dark almost an hour later.

With the exception of Hawaii and Arizona, the entire country will switch to daylight saving time this weekend.

However, because Americans living on the western edge of their time zone already have later sunrises than their neighbors to the east, when the nation springs forward, they will experience darker mornings than residents closer to each zone’s eastern border.

For example, in the Central Time Zone, sunrise already occurs around 6:20 a.m. in Memphis, Tenn., compared with around 7 a.m. in Guymon, Okla.

Under daylight saving time, the sunrise could be as late as 7:25 a.m. in Memphis and 8:14 a.m. in Guymon come November, according to an interactive tool from the organization Save Standard Time.

The “spring forward” can also mean darker mornings for many of the country’s northern states, where day lengths fluctuate more throughout the year.

The switch to daylight saving time means the city of Williston, N.D., could see sunrises as late as 8:45 a.m. by early November.

Overall, the effects of darker mornings will be most acutely felt in the northwestern regions of each time zone, including parts of Michigan, North Dakota and Montana.

The later sunrises come with dangers: The shift to daylight saving time has been linked to a number of health concerns, including an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and mood disturbances in the short term and, over the long term, heart disease and diabetes. The “spring forward” has also been connected with an increase in traffic accidents.