Time Changed -- Curious Inklings

I enjoyed your thoughts on the daylight saving time clock changing.

Sadly, moving back to Kokomo won't help anymore. As of April 2006, the whole state of Indiana now observes daylight saving time with the rest of the country.

Unfortunately, it's still hard to figure out what time it is in Indiana. Indiana's legislators and governor, and the bureaucrats at the U.S. Department of Transportation, saw fit to leave Indiana as the narrowest state split between two time zones. The next larger state split between two zones is about three times wider than Indiana. I believe Indiana is the only state originally well within the confines of a single time zone (central time) to be split into two zones by the federal government.

Most states have gone the other way. E.g., Ohio was originally split down the middle between eastern and central but now lies entirely in eastern.

Most of Indiana now lies in the eastern zone. If the Indianapolis clocks read noon at midday today, the sunrise would be 4:37 am and the sunset 7:23 pm. If we had sixty minutes of daylight shifted from morning to evening (the nominal goal of daylight saving time), sunrise/set today would be 5:37 am and 8:23 pm -- plenty of time for after-work chores and recreation before dusk at 9 pm. Instead, because of the lunacy of putting the majority of the state in the eastern zone, we get a sunrise/set of 6:20 am and 9:05 pm -- 102 minutes shifted from morning to evening -- and it doesn't really get dark until 9:30 to 10:00.

Bill Starr
Columbus, Indiana
Tue, 30 May 2006, 7:37 pm EDT

Time Changed -- Curious Inklings