Daylight Saving 2022: When Do Clocks Spring Forward In NJ?

NEW JERSEY — Just as the sun is starting to come out earlier in the chilly mornings, it will soon be time to spring forward in New Jersey.

Daylight saving time is just around the corner. This year, it begins at 2 a.m. Sunday, March 13, which means later sunsets, longer-seeming days and the biannual hassle of changing the time on old-school clocks.

For those who don't know, 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.

New Jersey is among the 48 states that — often begrudgingly — observe daylight saving time. Hawaii and Arizona don't observe the practice, although the Navajo Nation in the Grand Canyon State does.

But it's not a popular practice across the country. Americans by a 63 percent to 16 percent margin favoring ditching daylight saving time altogether, according to a recent Economic/YouGov poll.

The reasons the United States observes daylight saving are arguably absurd — as outlined in this video.

Since 2015, at least 350 bills and resolutions have been introduced in virtually every state. In 2018, Florida became the first state to enact legislation to permanently observe daylight saving time; however, any passed laws can't take effect until there's a change in the federal statute.

The 19 states where legislatures have approved bills favoring year-round daylight saving time are Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

California voters authorized year-round DST in 2018, but action on the referendum is still pending within the state Legislature. New Jersey introduced a permanent Daylight Saving Time bill in 2019, although it never made it out of the committee.

Patch writers Adam Nichols, Michael Woyton and Matt Troutman contributed to this report.