Daylight Saving Time Ending Soon In The Hudson Valley: How The 'Fall Back' Will Affect Halloween

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — Winter is coming, and as the days grow shorter, Hudson Valley residents will soon need to adjust their clocks, but this year is a little different.

The year the time change comes just hours after Halloween on Saturday, Oct. 31. It's rare that the holiday and time change coincide, but the synchronicity will give some revelers an extra hour to celebrate (or in some cases create mischief).

Daylight saving time ends on Sunday, November 1, 2026, at 2 a.m. local time, when clocks "fall back" one hour to become 1 a.m.

The switch to standard time means we'll have an hour less daylight at the end of the day and an hour more in the morning. Sunrise on Nov. 2 is around 6:30 a.m. in the Hudson Valley, and sunset is around 4:50 p.m.

The "fall back" to standard time is only temporary, unless something unexpected happens in Congress, which is unlikely. As the calendar stands now, we'll spring forward again on Sunday, March 14, 2027.

The idea of daylight saving time was first implemented more than a century ago by the Standard Time Act of 1918. It was designed to conserve energy by adding more daylight hours to work shifts.

How effective daylight saving time is as an energy conservation measure is debatable. A 2008 Energy Department study found DST saved the country nearly 1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, but a 2018 meta analysis of 44 studies found only a meager 0.34 percent decrease in energy consumption. A 2011 study based in Indiana, which has a complicated and messy history with DST, found slightly more energy usage during daylight saving time.

Daylight saving time is also complicated in Arizona, which stopped observing it in 1968 based on the energy needs of a hot, desert climate. Shifting an hour of daylight from the morning to the end of the day, when temperatures are typically the hottest, translated to more air conditioning use rather than less.

However, the Navajo Nation in the northeastern part of the state does observe DST. The Hopi Nation, which surrounds it, does not.

The only other state that doesn't observe DST is Hawaii, where it's a moot point. The length of days and temperatures in Hawaii remain fairly consistent during the year due to the tropical state's proximity to the equator.

Three years ago, the U.S. Senate passed legislation to adopt year-round daylight saving time and briefly buoyed the hopes of some Americans who want to dispense with the twice-a-year ritual of changing their clocks. However, the bill didn't make it out of committee in the House, where some lawmakers favored year-round standard time.

More recently, the House voted 308-117 to pass the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide. States could opt out and remain on standard time if their legislatures act before the measure takes effect.

This time, the legislation stalled in the senate.