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CrackityJones33 t1_jdwuw31 wrote

MA cannot stay in DST without an act of congress but we can elect to stay in standard time without federal approval.

MA and north of here in the US should really be in Atlantic time year round (GMT - 4) but for some reason we aligned with the rest of the eastern seaboard and it looks like we will be stuck this way forever.

There is a low probability the house pick up the vote on this one even though the senate unanimously past the vote.

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afoley947 t1_jdx59pu wrote

Yeah, Boston is actually as far east as the island of Haiti and DR.

Miami and Palm Beach are slightly more west than Buffalo/Toronto.

That's how far east we actually are.

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ebow77 t1_je8c1zl wrote

DR and Haiti are well south of the Tropic of Cancer, and the length of their daylight hours varies much less than ours.

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Hoosac_Love OP t1_jdwvntr wrote

There is possibility of such approval ,many places are considering either the abolition of DLST or turning ahead forever,not a total long shot by Congress

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CrackityJones33 t1_jdwz42y wrote

You are right, it is possible, but outside of MA, especially in the southern states, if they were to stay in DST for the entire year they would not have light in some cases until nearly 8:00am in the morning. This is one of the major reasons it failed in the 70s when congress did pass legislation keeping DST permanent.

I doubt the country as a whole will change again, but I would like to see MA move to Atlantic time (which may be even a greater challenge). This would essentially allow us to stay on DST year round.

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Hoosac_Love OP t1_jdxzpnr wrote

I agree it makes more sense in the north where in the summer months we have daylight from 5am to 9:30pm

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freakydeku t1_jdz9w9v wrote

yes i agree MA should just switch to atlantic time. pretty sure a bunch of NE states already have some stuff drawn up that basically says “if you guys do it well do it”

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cdmoomaw t1_jdx62pm wrote

US Eastern time (UTC-5) is “ideally” centered at 75° W, extending 7.5° to either side. By this logic, one would expect the time zone to extend roughly from 67.5° W to 82.5° W. This actually puts all of New England in UTC-5 except only for the very easternmost parts of Maine.

Where things get wacky is looking at the other end of Eastern Time. 82.5° W falls just a bit west of Cleveland, and yet the time zone continues way past that. Really, MI, IN, KY, TN, GA, and over half of OH should be on Central time, but they aren’t.

I’m not sure how things came to be this way, but it’s interesting how our use of time has drifted from the idea of “Solar Time” in a lot of places.

I’m not arguing what we should or should not be doing about this. I just think this is some interesting context.

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JJ2o2o t1_jdxsrx8 wrote

As a Michigan kid, I absolutely loved it being still light at 9:30pm in the summer.

4:15pm sunsets in December here get me bummed but I've gotten used to it.

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bthks t1_je21soh wrote

As a Massachusetts kid, that 4:15 sunset for you was at 3:15 for us. Got to watch it on the school bus on my way home each day.

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JJ2o2o t1_je24xz5 wrote

The 4:15 sunsets I’m referring to are in MA. Sun doesn’t set before 5pm in most of Michigan. I’ve never seen a sunset before 4 in MA.

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bthks t1_je2bwlu wrote

Ah, I misunderstood you-thought you were talking about growing up in Michigan and seeing 4:15 sunsets there. Maybe I’m remembering the end time of school, but there were definitely rides home where the school bus had to turn their lights on.

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sad0panda t1_jdxk30w wrote

Thank you. I've grown really tired of people saying New England should be on AST or permanent DST. When we are on standard time we are right where we are supposed to be, in terms of solar time.

Yes, this means ~4:30am sunrises and ~7:30pm sunsets in the summer. 👍

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freakydeku t1_jdza3pb wrote

but most of us get no daylight during the winter since people generally don’t wake up at 4am.

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Current-Photo2857 t1_je1a4a4 wrote

You wouldn’t get daylight in the winter waking up at 4am anyway? In standard time, winter sunrise is around 7am or later (which is when PLENTY of people are waking up/heading to school or work)…if we were in DST in the winter, sunrises would be as late as almost 8:30 for some areas, and most people need to be awake and at work before then.

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sad0panda t1_je24x8o wrote

I said summer, not winter. There is no such thing as a 4:30 sunrise in winter. Except in Australia maybe, but they call it summer too last I checked.

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snozzcumbersoup t1_je099qd wrote

We're already on DST for 8 months out of the year. I don't hear anyone complaining about it. Why would we switch to ST? Most people are not up at 4:30am, but are up well past 7:30pm.

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sad0panda t1_je1pucn wrote

Standard time means the sun is directly above you at noon (or, roughly close to it). DST is the "switch". Until 2007, DST was 4 weeks shorter.

Personally I'm actually OK with the time change. Once you get to a certain point in summer, yeah, 4:30 sunrise doesn't really make sense. But it should happen in April and October, not March and November. This 6:30 sunrise is killing me, we were just making progress when the DST switch hit.

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AnonymityIsForChumps t1_jdy4fiy wrote

That's only the ideal if you think that noon should be the middle of the day. I don't.

I'm almost always awake 8 hours after noon at 8 PM, but almost never awake 8 hours before noon at 4 AM. The schedule of our lives aren't centered around noon, so why should the daylight hours?

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RandyCheeseburgers01 t1_je12h3j wrote

I guess the question is why our days are no longer centered around solar noon. Intuitively, that has to be the most natural way, evolutionarily speaking. Our circadian rhythms haven't changed drastically since the Industrial Revolution. That's not the kind of time scale evolution operates on.

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RandyCheeseburgers01 t1_je122ma wrote

^ This guy/gal gets it. It's more nuanced than "I want the sun to set every day at 8 PM so I can exercise after work!!"

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