When Daylight Saving Time 2019 Begins: 5 Things To Do In Maryland

Daylight Saving Time begins Sunday, March 10, delivering the annual “spring forward” routine an extra hour of daylight in Maryland and most places in America — most, because two U.S. states, Arizona and Hawaii, and a handful of territories don’t observe the twice-annual ritual of the changing of the clocks.

While spring doesn't pop up on the calendar until March 20, the first hint of it comes when Daylight Saving Time officially begins at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 10. That means you'll want to turn your old-school clocks forward an hour when you go to bed Saturday night, March 9. The change is automatic for most smartphones, computers, tablets and other digital devices.

What to do, what to do? Here are five things to do around Maryland:

1. Annapolis St. Patrick's Day Parade: Grab a spot along the parade route for an earful of some of the best pipe bands around. Organizers of the family friendly event are expecting record crowds this year. The parade will start at 1 p.m. on West Street downtown.

2. Kids Fest 2019: A free event for families in Bel Air lets kids have fun in the bounce village, a basketball shoot off, slap on glitter tattoos, enjoy a cupcake tasting, and get a free slice of pizza. Door prizes include a free flight from iFLY and a free week of summer camp from Active Minds Learning Camp. Held at St. Matthew's Church in the Gymnasium. Come rain or shine.

3. Perry Hall Athletic Boosters Bull Roast: The Perry Hall High School Athletic Boosters will hold a bull roast fundraiser on Sunday, March 10, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Martin's East, 9000 Pulaski Highway. Tickets are $45 per person in advance or $50 at the door and cover the cost of an open premium bar, pit beef, pit ham, pit turkey, salads and more.

4. Naval Academy Band Chamber Winds Concert: The Naval Academy Band Chamber Winds will present an evening of chamber music for winds and brass. The program will feature Mladi by Leos Janacek, Essay for Brass and Winds by William Mayer, Serenade No. 1 by Vincent Persichetti, and Divertimento, Op. 22 by Hans Gal. Naval Academy Band performances are free and open to the public with no tickets required.

5. Gunpowder Wine Trail Ultimate Tasting Experience: The events runs throughout March and includes tastings at all four wineries for $25 for two people or a VIP tasting for $35 for two people. This 21 and older event will feature wines from each of the four Gunpowder Wine Trail wineries: Fiore Winery & Distillery, Harford Vineyard & Winery, Mount Felix Vineyard & Winery, and Royal Rabbit Vineyards.

Daylight Saving Time is the practice of setting clocks forward one hour from standard time in the spring, and back again in the fall, in order to make better use of natural daylight.Sunrise will be about an hour later, which will make Monday's commute a bit more risky. AAA Mid-Atlantic says school students waiting for buses and drivers heading to work in the dark can increase the odds of an accident. According to recent findings from the Governor's Highway Safety Association, 75 percent of pedestrian fatalities happen when it's dark.

Lawmakers in Hawaii and Arizona have declined to go along with the rest of the country on Daylight Saving Time. In Arizona, where the temperature can routinely reach a scorching 115 degrees, it’s a matter of retaining earlier sunsets and cooler evening temperatures. But the decision not to participate in the time adjustment isn’t absolute. Daylight Saving Time is observed on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, which surrounds the Hopi Reservation, which doesn’t.

Because Hawaii is far south of mainland states with a latitude similar to Mexico City, lawmaker there haven’t seen the need to increase the hours of daylight. The U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands also don’t observe Daylight Saving Time.

One other thing to do the night before the time change: Test your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Just before you move that clock hand forward an hour, push the test button on the smoke and carbon monoxide alarm(s) in your home. If they do not work, replace the battery — unless it is a sealed 10-year lithium battery, in which case you will have to get a new alarm.

Here are five things to know about the time switch:

1. Daylight Saving Time is not an American invention. Yes, Benjamin Franklin proposed the idea way back when and said Americans could conserve candles if they just got up an hour earlier. But the first known advocate of Daylight Saving Time was Englishman William Willett in 1905. His proposal to move clocks ahead by 80 minutes between April and October was rejected by the English Parliament, though, and the first country to implement the practice was Germany, which used it to save fuel during World War I..

The United States has used Daylight Saving Time off and on since 1918 as a wartime measure, but the current federal policy was first enacted in 1966 as the Uniform Time Act signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It has changed several times since then — notably in 1974, when Congress extended Daylight Saving Time to 10 months of the year following the 1973 oil embargo. But it was controversial, as many complained children were forced to go to school in the dark on winter mornings, endangering their lives.

Most of the changes have dealt with starting and ending dates. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 took effect in 2007 and called for clocks to “spring forward” on the second Sunday of March and “fall back” on the first Sunday in November. This year, that will be on Nov. 3.

2. Daylight Saving Time isn’t saving that much energy. The purported savings in the Energy Policy Act never materialized to a significant extent. A study by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2008 found the decrease in energy usage was hardly measurable — just 0.003 percent.

But a study from the University of California-Santa Barbara found the practice actually increased energy usage because an extra hour of daylight meant an extra hour of air-conditioner use. The authors of the 2008 study, which focused on the state of Indiana because it was slow to embrace the practice, said that based on conservative estimates, Indiana residents paid about $3.18 more a year for electricity. Statewide, that would add up to increased costs of $8.6 million a year.

3. Springing forward may be unhealthy. A study three years ago by the University of Michigan showed that the short-term risk of a heart attack goes up about 25 percent after the time switch. U-M cardiologist Dr. Hitinder Gurm, the study’s author, said that though it’s tough to pinpoint an exact reason, data showed a 25 percent surge in heart attacks on the first full work day after the time switch.

Another study published by Chronobiology International found that women who have had previous miscarriages who were undergoing in vitro fertilization were at much higher risk for miscarriages if their embryo transfers occurred during the 21 days following the start of DST compared to those whose transfers took place at other times of the year, including during the days after the switch back to Standard Time.

4. You’re less likely to get mugged and robbed when Daylight Saving Time is in effect. In a 2015 paper published by the Brookings Institute found that on the day DST begins in the spring, robbery rates fall by an average of 7 percent for the entire day. The decrease was much greater — 27 percent, during the evening hour that gained extra sunlight.

The reason: When DST isn’t in effect, the sunset and the end of the work day often coincide, and people are easier targets when they’re walking to their cars in the dark.

5. Fatigue and sleep deprivation associated with the time switch may increase “cyberloafing.” The number of Google searches for entertainment content, specifically “YouTube,” “videos,” “music” and “ESPN” rise sharply on the Monday following the time switch, according to a 2012 study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.