Demonstrating Sunrise Moments under Continuous Daylight Time Adjustments
The Washington Post's recent visualizations offer an insightful look into the effects of making Daylight Savings Time (DST) permanent across the United States. These visualizations reveal that sunrise times would significantly shift later in the morning, particularly in winter months.
In the visualization, sunset times are grouped in half-hour increments from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., indicating that the latest sunset on the first day of the year would be after 7:30 p.m. in some parts of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. Conversely, sunrise times are grouped into half-hour increments from 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., suggesting that the earliest sunrise on the latest day of the year would be after 7:30 a.m. in some parts of Washington, Oregon, and California.
Key changes highlighted by the visualizations include:
- Winter mornings would be darker because clocks would not "fall back," so sunrise would occur later than under standard time. This could mean sunrise well after 8:00 or even 9:00 AM in some areas.
- In states and regions currently on the eastern edges of their time zones (such as parts of the East Coast), sunrise would occur particularly late, sometimes pushing well into the work or school day.
- In western parts of time zones (like some western states inland), sunrise shifts would be somewhat less extreme but still notable.
- Conversely, sunsets would occur later in the evening, meaning more daylight at the end of the day year-round.
These effects create a trade-off: darker mornings for more evening daylight, which is the primary intent of permanent DST. The visualizations emphasize how the shift is uneven across the country due to geographic and longitudinal differences within time zones.
In the visualization, the corresponding color indicates the sunset time, revealing that the sunset on the latest day of the year would be later in the day in most of the United States if DST is made permanent. Similarly, the correlating color across the country indicates the sunrise time. For instance, if DST is made permanent, the sun won't rise in some parts of Montana, North Dakota, and Michigan until after 9:30 a.m. on the days with the latest sunrise.
The visualization also displays sunrise and sunset times for different days of the year. In the visualization, the latest sunset is after 8:30 p.m. in some parts of Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire. If DST is made permanent, sunset will occur after 8:30 p.m. in some parts of Alaska and Hawaii as well. The sunset in some parts of California, Arizona, and Nevada would be after 7:30 p.m.
While this article does not include the direct Washington Post visuals, it provides a summary consistent with well-known analyses of permanent DST impacts across the U.S. For detailed hour-by-hour maps or animations, the Washington Post’s published interactive graphics and simulations are the best direct source to see precise sunrise time shifts by location and date. The concept is that permanent DST abolishes the standard time "fall back," making mornings darker in winter but evenings brighter year-round.
In the visualization, the correlating color across the country indicates the sunrise time, suggesting that under permanent Daylight Savings Time (DST), the sun won't rise in some parts of Montana, North Dakota, and Michigan until after 9:30 a.m. Furthermore, in the environmental-science context, permanent DST would result in scientific data and cloud-computing analyses displaying climate-change patterns with sunsets after 8:30 p.m. in some parts of Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, thereby affecting technology-based schedules.
