{"id":362584,"date":"2026-04-03T23:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/362584\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T23:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:20:09","slug":"daylight-saving-time-2026-when-the-clocks-change-and-what-it-means-for-your-long-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/362584\/","title":{"rendered":"Daylight saving time 2026: When the clocks change and what it means for your long weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img  alt=\"The change to daylight saving is a good time to check smoke alarms.\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The change to daylight saving is a good time to check smoke alarms.<\/p>\n<p>Why do we observe daylight savings?<\/p>\n<p class=\"sYHrSxRJWo\" style=\"display:none\">Aotearoa is among the 40% of the world who adjust their clocks seasonally to align with the Earth\u2019s axial tilt. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sYHrSxRJWo\" style=\"display:none\">Our planet\u2019s axis of rotation is tilted 23.44\u00b0, which means that as the Earth orbits the sun, hemispheres either lean toward the sun, creating longer summer days, or away in winter which results in shorter daylight hours. To align human activity with peak daylight hours clocks are moved back to bring sunrise times earlier in the morning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sYHrSxRJWo\" style=\"display:none\">Not everyone partakes in the \u201cspring forward, fall back\u201d observance also known as summertime. Locations closer to the North and South poles experience greater seasonal changes in day length, making them more likely to use daylight savings than equatorial adjacent tropical regions. <\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Daylight saving time around the world. Photo\/ Heitordp via Inkscape\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Daylight saving time around the world. Photo\/ Heitordp via Inkscape<\/p>\n<p class=\"sYHrSxRJWo\" style=\"display:none\">Seasonal changes to timekeeping are considered a Kiwi invention. In 1895, entomologist and astronomer George Hudson presented a proposal to the Wellington Philosophical Society that clocks should be changed by two hours every spring, creating more after-hours daylight for insect collecting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sYHrSxRJWo\" style=\"display:none\">Germany was the first country to officially implement daylight savings in 1916 during World War I, an effort to make better use of daylight and conserve energy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sYHrSxRJWo\" style=\"display:none\">New Zealand first observed daylight saving time in 1927.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sYHrSxRJWo\" style=\"display:none\">The dates and amounts that clocks go forward and back by have varied over the years, but Aotearoa adopted the current dates \u2013 from the last Sunday in September to the first Sunday in April \u2013 in 2007.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sYHrSxRJWo\" style=\"display:none\">Proponents say benefits include energy saving and increased usable hours for leisure and recreation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sYHrSxRJWo\" style=\"display:none\">Critics say the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/lifestyle\/expert-tips-on-how-to-adjust-kids-bedtimes-for-seamless-daylight-saving-transition\/XLDHW3AM2ZDVBB4XW5JEVWQQ7I\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/lifestyle\/expert-tips-on-how-to-adjust-kids-bedtimes-for-seamless-daylight-saving-transition\/XLDHW3AM2ZDVBB4XW5JEVWQQ7I\/\">time shifts disrupt our circadian rhythm and sleeping patterns<\/a>, risking impacting health and mood in the days following the change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The change to daylight saving is a good time to check smoke alarms. Why do we observe daylight&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,95,6927,12974,45663,26225,2082,702,141082,6093,2190,17768,1304,111,43,139,69,17695,915,3271,10809,223,2044,6277,4767,6923,1316,1959],"class_list":{"0":"post-362584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-2246","9":"tag-and","10":"tag-brighter","11":"tag-change","12":"tag-clocks","13":"tag-daylight","14":"tag-for","15":"tag-it","16":"tag-lighter","17":"tag-little","18":"tag-long","19":"tag-means","20":"tag-morning","21":"tag-new-zealand","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-outlook","26":"tag-saving","27":"tag-should","28":"tag-sunday","29":"tag-the","30":"tag-time","31":"tag-wake","32":"tag-weekend","33":"tag-what","34":"tag-when","35":"tag-your"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}