Time to change your clock

It’s that dreaded time of year when Americans can look forward to losing an hour of sleep and feeling tired Monday morning as they adjust to Daylight Savings Time, which takes effect at 2 a.m. Sunday.

Whether you take care of it Saturday night of first think Sunday, you need to move your clock an hour forward to stay in sync.

Fire officials say it’s a good time to change the batteries in smoke detectors, too.

If the time change seems early, it’s because it’s just the second year that Americans have moved their clocks forward in early March, instead of April, under the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

The start of Daylight Savings, formerly the last Sunday in April, has been moved successively earlier with the aim of exploiting late evening sunlight and cutting Americans night energy use.

The 2005 law also extends Daylight Savings until the first Sunday in November, meaning most Americans won’t turn their clocks back again until Nov. 2.

While early studies suggested a 1 percent reduction in household energy use for each day of Daylight Savings, more recent studies have raised the possibility that any savings is negligible if, in fact, one exists.

Regardless, come 2 a.m. Sunday, an hour of the your day will disappear. Set those timepieces ahead.