Early on this Sunday morning residents in most of the nation "leaped ahead" to Daylight Saving Time after roughly 5 months of observing Standard Time. Since Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the eastern time zone sections of Indiana do not observe Daylight Saving Time, no time change was needed in those parts of the country. Time changes have been mandated by the U.S. Congress. Following the old adage of "spring ahead, fall behind", most of you will need to turn your clocks ahead by one hour to conform with the local time observance.
What does this time change mean to you (other than later sunsets)? A change from Standard Time to Daylight Saving does not add an extra hour of daylight to the day nor does it affect weather patterns. While the weather will not change because of the time change, the times when you will be able to obtain some weather charts (especially the upper air charts) will now be one hour later. The reason for this timing is that the National Weather Service always operates on "Z time" (variously called Greenwich Mean Time or Universal Coordinated Time) which does not observe Daylight Saving Time. Thus, the charts are still produced and transmitted at the same Z time.