Vancouver to see very late winter sunrises under B.C.'s new time zone | Daily Hive

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The official start of winter is just around the corner, and those who enjoy seeing the sunrise on a frosty morning in Vancouver will have to wait a little longer for it because B.C. has not fallen back for daylight saving time.

B.C. is sticking to the newly established time zone, PCT, which stands for Pacific Time. The clocks ordinarily roll back one hour when Nov. 1 rolls around, granting residents an extra hour of sleep. That did not happen this year.

According to Time and Date, the sunrise in Vancouver will begin as late as 9:07 a.m. from Saturday, Dec. 26 to Tuesday, Jan. 5.

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Time and Date also show that the shortest day occurs on Monday, Dec. 21, with 8 hours and 11 minutes of day length.

And those who want to snap some photos of the earliest sunset of the holiday season can do so from Dec. 8 to 14 at 5:13 p.m. in the afternoon.

Last March, Premier David Eby announced that B.C. would officially move to permanent daylight saving time and end the twice-yearly clock changes in the fall and spring.

At the time, Eby said that it would improve health, reduce disruptions for families, and allow an extra hour of light during winter evenings.

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Patrick Baylis, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver School of Economics, is the co-author of a recent analysis that examined the health impacts of adopting permanent standard time or permanent daylight saving time.

“I think compared to the previous [twice-annual] switching, it’s a little bit of an improvement,” he told Daily Hive in an interview.

Baylis said that the twice-annual switches resulted in people losing that hour of sleep every spring, which would affect them for several weeks after and contribute to risks like an increased likelihood of car accidents, as well as behavioural, learning, or attention issues in adolescents.

However, Baylis noted, “we think permanent standard would have been the better choice.”

Permanent standard time was created so that time zones align with the day-night cycle, so that the sun is directly overhead at noon. This time zone gave people more opportunity to get morning light during the short winter days, which ultimately helps people sleep better.

With files from Hanna Hett and Daily Hive staff