“Daylight Saving Time” is done for 2026 and we’re back on “Standard Time” again. You know what that means! It’s time to analyze the results and calculate exactly how much daylight has been saved.
I’ve modified the Python script from last year to run the same analysis for the 2026 calendar year. It computes the total amount of daylight in the year based on the sunrise and sunset times at Washington Dulles International Airport under the current system with twice-annual time changes, then compares those results to what they would be if we used either standard time or daylight saving time year-round.
The results are just as stunning as they were last year:
ANNUAL TOTALS:
Current (with DST): 4449.56 hours of daylight
Standard (no DST) : 4449.56 hours of daylight
Permanent DST : 4449.56 hours of daylight
DAYLIGHT SAVED:
Current (with DST) vs. Standard (no DST): 0.0
Current (with DST) vs. Permanent DST : 0.0
It’s hard to believe, but it looks like the the arbitrary numbers we assign to our hours don’t actually have an effect on the rotation of the Earth and the amount of daylight in a given day! Weird!
Download the script (ZIP)
Python script; requires ‘astral’ and ‘pytz’