Daylight Saving Time starts Sunday

Set clocks forward one hour.

Daylight Saving Time (DST) starts Sunday at 2 a.m. when clocks will spring ahead an hour. In the process of gaining an hour of sunlight in the evening, we lose an hour in the morning.
While those who enjoy the extra hour of sunlight in the evening welcome the change, parents who will have to get kids up an hour earlier for school might not be as happy. With the change, the 6 a.m. hour springs ahead to 7 a.m., so it is going to feel like, at least for a while, those rising at what used to be 6 a.m. are getting up at what feels like 5 a.m.
Saturday morning, the sun will rise at 6:50, but with the change to DST, the sun doesn’t rise until 7:48 Sunday morning. 
 Sunset Saturday is at 6:17 in the evening but jumps to 7:20 Sunday.
It will take until April 8 to gain that hour of morning light back as the run rises at 6:50 a.m.
The days are steadily getting longer now with two to three minutes of sunlight added each day. Days continue to lengthen until June 21, the longest day of the year, when the sun rises at 5:34 a.m. and sets at 9:14 p.m., making for a day with 15 hours and 40 minutes  of daylight. As of Sunday, the days are 11 hours and 35 minutes long.
“March comes as a kind of interregnum, winter’s sovereignty is relaxing, spring not yet in control. But the pattern is now established,” the late Hal Borland writes in his book Twelve Moons of the Year.
But he says, “March has a dubious record at best. There is the hint of madness in the very mention of the March hare. There’s the threat of dark deeds in the ides of March. There is the lamb-and-lion belief. There is March mud, there are March floods, and there are the winds of March.”
March’s first few days this year are more like a lamb with temperatures expected to reach into the 50s. But with lows sinking into the 20s Friday night, then rain expected could change to snow. If it does snow, it won’t last long with the high Saturday expected to be 44. 
The average high for March 4, Wednesday, is 33 and the average low 16. The record high is 66 in 2000 and the record low a minus 17 recorded in 1960.
March also brings the Vernal (spring) Equinox on the 20th. At the equinox, day and night are of nearly equal length. On that date, the area will have 12 hours and 8 minutes of daylight. However, the date on which our area comes the closest equal hours of sunlight and darkness is March 17 when there are 11 hours and 59 minutes of sunlight and 12 hours and 1 minute of night.
With spring’s start March 20, we can see highs reach into the 60s and lows that can fall to 10 to 12 below zero. The month can see the city grass brown and plowed fields black or 20 inches of snow on the ground and more on the way. 
“Winter may seem endless by the time March rolls around, but this month the sun and the day length are both climbing at top speed,” Deanne Morrison writes in her University of Minnesota Starwatch column.
“Spring begins with the vernal equinox at 11:06 p.m. Tuesday, the 19th. At that moment, the sun crosses the equator heading north, and Earth will be lighted from pole to pole,” she writes. “From then until the September equinox, the day length increases as we travel north. Also, the day length increases most rapidly near the spring equinox because the sun is then moving most rapidly northward.”

Date    Sunrise    Sunset    Sunlight
March 7    6:50    6:17    11 hrs 27 min
March 8    7:48    7:19    11 hrs 31 min
March 17    7:31    7:30    11 hrs 59 min
March 20    7:27    7:34    12 hrs 9 min
June 20    5:34    9:14    15 hrs 40 min
Dec. 21    7:59    4:42    8 hrs 43 min