Daylight Saving Time Explorer
What would permanent daylight saving time actually mean where you live? Enter a location to compare sunrise, sunset and the amount of daylight during your normal morning and evening routine under three possibilities: today’s clock changes, permanent daylight saving time and permanent standard time.
Permanent Daylight Saving Time Explorer
What would permanent Daylight Saving Time actually mean where you live?
Enter a location to compare sunrise, sunset and daylight during your normal routine under three possible clock policies:
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Today’s twice-yearly clock changes
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Permanent Daylight Saving Time
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Permanent Standard Time
The Explorer analyzes a full year of sunrise and sunset times for your location, showing how each option would affect dark winter mornings, evening daylight and everyday activities throughout the year.
Permanent Daylight Saving Time does not create more daylight
Changing the clocks cannot add daylight to the day. It only changes when that daylight appears on the clock.
Under permanent Daylight Saving Time, locations that currently return to Standard Time in winter would keep their clocks one hour ahead. Sunset would appear an hour later, but sunrise would also appear an hour later.
Permanent Standard Time makes the opposite trade-off. It provides earlier morning light throughout the year, but summer sunsets also occur an hour earlier than they would under Daylight Saving Time.
The practical effect depends on where you live, the time of year and your daily schedule.
Why location matters
The effect of permanent Daylight Saving Time is not the same everywhere.
Sunrise and sunset times vary with latitude, while your position within a time zone also affects how closely clock time matches the position of the sun. Two cities in the same time zone can therefore experience noticeably different sunrise and sunset times.
The Explorer uses the location you enter to calculate these effects across the entire year. This lets you evaluate the trade-off using your own mornings, evenings and daily activities rather than relying on national averages.
Compare three clock policies
The Explorer shows what the same year would look like under:
Current clock changes
The location follows its present schedule, switching between Daylight Saving Time and Standard Time where applicable.
Permanent Daylight Saving Time
The summer clock remains in place throughout the year. Evening daylight appears later by the clock during the months that currently use Standard Time, but winter sunrise also occurs an hour later.
Permanent Standard Time
The location remains on Standard Time throughout the year. Morning daylight arrives earlier by the clock, while summer evenings become darker an hour earlier.
See how daylight fits your routine
You can add the times of activities that matter to you, such as:
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Getting up in the morning
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Waiting for the school bus
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Traveling to work
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Walking or exercising after work
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Eating dinner
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Spending time outside in the evening
The Explorer calculates whether each activity would take place in daylight, twilight or darkness under each clock policy. Monthly comparisons show how those results change with the seasons.
You can also adjust the light basis used by the analysis. This lets you compare activities using sunrise and sunset or include periods of twilight when some natural light remains in the sky.
What the Explorer shows
For each location, the results include:
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A comparison of the current clock schedule, permanent Daylight Saving Time and permanent Standard Time
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Month-by-month daylight results for the activities in your routine
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Daily sunrise and sunset curves across the year
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The latest and earliest sunrise and sunset times under each policy
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Plain-language summaries of the effect on mornings and evenings
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A comparison between local clock time and a clock aligned more closely with solar time
Together, these views show not just when sunrise and sunset occur, but what each clock policy would mean during an ordinary day.
How to use the Daylight Saving Time Explorer
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Enter a city, address or other location.
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Add or adjust the activities in your daily routine.
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Choose whether to base the analysis on daylight or twilight.
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Run the annual analysis.
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Compare the three clock-policy scenarios.
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Review the monthly charts and daily sunrise and sunset curves.
Try several activity times to see how the result changes for early mornings, school schedules, commutes and evening activities.
Terminology for your location
Clock terminology varies around the world, so the Explorer adapts its labels to the location entered.
In the United States, it uses Daylight Saving Time and Standard Time. In the United Kingdom, it uses British Summer Time and Greenwich Mean Time. In much of continental Europe, it uses Summer Time and Winter Time.
Locations that do not currently change their clocks are also handled according to their local time-zone rules.
Sunrise and sunset data for developers
The Explorer is powered by the Visual Crossing Timeline Weather API, which provides sunrise, sunset, weather and astronomical data for locations worldwide.
Developers can use the API to retrieve daily sunrise and sunset times for any supported location and date range. The request generated by the Explorer can also be viewed and copied as a starting point for your own analysis or application.
Learn how to get started with the Timeline Weather API:
You can also build and test weather-data requests directly in the browser using the Weather Data Query Builder:
https://www.visualcrossing.com/weather-query-builder/
Preview results may be limited. Sign in to your Visual Crossing account to run the complete annual analysis and view the full API response.
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