South Bend Tribune Forums -> Time Zone

I just had this forum called to my attention for the first time.

I think DST may end up being a plus for Hoosier businesses engaged in interstate commerce, but I thought the legislature and governor should have petitioned for the whole state to be on central time (possibly excepting the five counties near Cincinnati and Louisville).

This is because we're three time further from the middle of the eastern zone (near Philadelphia) than from the middle of central (near St. Louis). Just look at January 30 in South Bend. There are about 10 hours of sunlight that day. The way the time zones are set up, that should mean sunrise about 7:00 am and sunset about 5:00 pm -- 5 hours before midday and 5 hours after. Instead, on EST, the actual sunrise is 7:58 am and sunset 5:59 pm. (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.html)

While people certainly disagree on whether it's a good thing or not, at least we can all agree that this is virtually one hour of DST in the middle of winter.

At the other extreme, look at August 11 -- another day for which the math is pretty simple to do in your head. There are about 14 hours of daylight. With one hour shifted from morning to evening for DST, that should mean sunrise about 6:00 am and sunset about 8:00 pm -- 6 hours before midday and 8 hours after. Instead, the actual sunrise is 6:49 am and 8:50 pm.

Again, people disagree on whether this is a good thing or not, but at least we can all plainly see that EDT puts us within ten minutes of what some would call "double daylight time".

The latest summer sunset in South Bend on EDT will be 9:24 pm in late June. It won't really get dark for another 30 to 60 minutes after that. I lived in South Bend from 1987 to 1992. I thought 8:24 pm was plenty late enough for sunset. There are about 15 hours 10 minutes of sunlight that day. Even on year-round CDT/EST as we have had for decades, 8:24 pm sunset still means about 48 minutes of morning sunlight shifted to the evening. That always seemed reasonably close to one hour of DST to me.

Following up on the anonymous comment of January 19, while it's clearly true we are not "part of Chicago", we're much further from being "part of" New York City or Philadelphia, which are near the center of the eastern zone.

Following up on another anonymous comment that day, it's a bit of exaggeration to say that sunset would be 4pm in the winter. The earliest sunset in South Bend would be about 4:15 pm in mid-December, and true darkness does not really set in for another 30 to 60 minutes.

When you decide to live at 42 degrees from the equator, like South Bend, your shortest winter day is only about 9 hours 10 minutes of sunlight. If you divide this evenly between morning and evening, it is reasonable to expect the latest winter sunrise around 7:30 am and the earliest sunset around 4:30 pm, give or take 30 minutes depending on how far you live from the middle of the nearest time zone. It's just simple math. If this is not tolerable, then moving nearer to the equator is the only thing that will really help. There just aren't that many hours to spread around this time of year.

"Home rule" is not that outlandish of a consideration for any county unhappy with where the boundary got drawn. Look at the five counties near Cincinnati and Louisville. Both the state and federal governments have been basically looking the other way for the last 40 or so years, while these counties observed eastern daylight time seven months of the year without the rest of the state, and without any official state or federal authorization or sanction to do so.

Regarding the comment from January 19, it's easy to jump to the wrong conclusion about whether more of our neighbors are on central time or eastern. Actually it's split just about in half -- about 394 miles of Indiana borders land on central time and 393 miles borders eastern. What people forget is that Kentucky is split between two time zones too.

Bill Starr
Columbus, Indiana
http://tinyurl.com/88nnw
http://tinyurl.com/7uo4a
Thu, 2 Feb 2006, 11:42pm EST/CDT

South Bend Tribune Forums -> Time Zone