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It's not quite spring, but it is time to spring forward
Published: 3/10/2012 12:00 AM
Last Modified: 3/9/2012 4:52 PM




There are lots of reasons to dislike winter. Mounds of dirty snow (though we didn’t have to worry about that this year); that frigid north wind from Canada; gray, barren trees.

But what gets me the most is the fact that it’s dark when I leave work. Like, as dark as midnight. When I worked the night shift here, the sun was setting when I got into work, which was incredibly depressing.

We’ve been gaining several minutes a day as the Earth makes its way around the sun, but starting Sunday, the amount of evening daylight will increase significantly. Specifically, by an hour.

It’s Daylight saving time, y’all! The most wonderful time of the year!

At 2 a.m. Sunday, it will suddenly be 3 a.m., through the magic of arbitrary laws.

So, on Saturday, the sun will set 6:27 p.m. Then, a day later, the sun will set at 7:28. Cool!

The flip side to that is the sun will rise an hour later. But for someone who is rarely awake to see that occur, I’m not too concerned about that...

While it’s not as nice sleep-wise to spring forward compared to that free hour when we fall back, this has a long-view reward for not much sacrifice.

So, why do we spring forward, you ask? Bugs.

Yes, insects. A New Zealand entomologist named George Vernon Hudson liked collecting bugs (hence the entomologist thing…duh), but had his leisure time constrained by his day shift job. In 1895, he proposed adding a two hour daylight saving shift so he would have more daylight in the evenings to do his buggy things, and the idea started to catch on.

But it wasn’t until 1916 that it started to actually come into practice around the world. The first year of daylight saving time in the United States was 1918.

Daylight Saving Time in the United States has since gone through some changes. Most recently, in 2007 daylight saving time was extended by four weeks when it was moved to the second Sunday in March and the ends on the first Sunday of November.

Part of the goal there was for energy conservation. If people use natural light longer when they are home, that’s less energy they are using with artificial light. The goal I assume they were aiming for was to make me happier in the evenings. So, I’ll go with that, too. Like I've said here before, sunshine makes you happy.

So, don’t forget to set those clocks forward Saturday night. AND, don’t forget to check your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and batteries. Those things will save your life.

--Jerry Wofford


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Almanac
View 2012
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun
Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
TemperaturePrecipitation
DateHigh TempLow TempTotalMonth to dateHistorical average
1 44° 16° 0 0.00 0.05
2 59° 24° 0 0.00 0.11
3 57° 33° 0 0.00 0.16
4 68° 37° Trace 0.00 0.21
5 69° 29° 0 0.00 0.26
6 66° 33° 0 0.00 0.32
7 59° 38° 0.05 0.05 0.38
8 51° 34° 0 0.05 0.44
9 44° 36° 0.01 0.06 0.51
10 62° 37° 0.07 0.13 0.57
11 54° 28° 0 0.13 0.64
12 44° 30° 0.25 0.38 0.70
13 55° 40° 0.01 0.39 0.76
14 ° ° 0.83
15 ° ° 0.89
16 ° ° 0.95
17 ° ° 1.02
18 ° ° 1.09
19 ° ° 1.16
20 ° ° 1.23
21 ° ° 1.31
22 ° ° 1.38
23 ° ° 1.46
24 ° ° 1.53
25 ° ° 1.61
26 ° ° 1.69
27 ° ° 1.77
28 ° ° 1.85

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Tulsa weather milestones of 2013 (as of Feb. 12)

Highest temperature: 70 on Jan. 11 (Record: 115 on Aug. 15, 1936)
Lowest temperature: 15 on Jan. 16 (Record: Minus-16 on Jan. 22, 1930)
Hottest month (average): 40.5 degrees in January (Record: 91.7 degrees on July 1980)
Coldest month (average): 40. 5 degrees in January (Record: 21.7 in January 1918)
Most snowfall (day): 0.1 of an inch on Feb. 12(Record: 13.2 inches on Feb. 1, 2011)
Most snowfall (month): 0.1 of an inch in February(Record: 22.5 inches in February 2011)
Most rainfall (day): 0.91 of an inch on Jan. 29 (Record: 9.27 inches on May 26-27, 1984)
Most rainfall (month): 1.54 of an inch in January (Record: 18.18 inches on September 1971)
Highest wind speed: 30 mph on Jan. 30
Previous day with any rain: Feb. 12
Previous day with 1 inch or more of rain: Oct. 17, 2012
Previous day with any snow: Feb. 12
Previous day with freezing temperatures: Feb. 12
Read regular updates on Oklahoma's unpredictable weather and learn more about meteorology from the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service.

>> Visit the main weather page
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>> Meet the forecasters

Contributors
Staff Writer Althea Peterson started writing for the Tulsa World in March 2007 after previous stops at the Norman Transcript in 2006 and the Oklahoma Gazette in 2005. She followed her older brother from rural Wisconsin (with a public school that never seemed to call snow days) to the University of Oklahoma, but did not follow his pursuit to study meteorology. However, she tries to find as many opportunities to report on the weather as possible.

Staff Writer Jerry Wofford came to the Tulsa World in 2010 from The Manhattan Mercury in Manhattan, Kan. Originally from western Arkansas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma, Jerry has lived in Tornado Alley his entire life and is one of those people who goes outside when the sirens go off.

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