I hear the two same questions every fall when it’s time to turn the clocks back: “Do we really get an extra hour of sleep?” and “Does this mess with the weather?”
As both a meteorologist and a parent, I can tell you that “extra hour” is hit or miss. I loved this weekend before I had kids. Gaining an hour felt like a little gift. But now? My kids’ internal clocks don’t care what mine says. They’re up at the same time, bright and early!
Still, the change from daylight saving time to standard time doesn’t actually give us more daylight, it just shifts it. The sun rises and sets earlier, which can make mornings feel brighter and evenings seem to vanish faster.
And as for the weather? The atmosphere doesn’t notice our clock adjustments one bit. There is one small perk for meteorologists. Weather models, those complex computer systems we use to predict conditions, run on something called “Zulu time,” or UTC. That’s a universal time standard that keeps meteorologists around the world on the same schedule.
When we “fall back,” it means we get our forecast data an hour earlier than before. It’s not a big change, but for those of us watching the skies, it’s a nice little bonus.
Kirsten Lang is a Tulsa-based meteorologist and a contributor to the Tulsa Flyer.
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