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Daylight saving ends: how to remember which way to turn your clocks

Do you turn your clocks forwards or backwards at 3am this Sunday, April 6, in the Australian states and territories where daylight saving ends (NSW, ACT, SA, Vic, Tas)?

That might seem like a simple question, but even great minds have occasionally seized up as people ask themselves, "Wait, is it forward or back? Are we adding or subtracting an hour here?"

The answer is that you turn the clocks backwards (if indeed your home or personal effects include any timepieces that require manual changing), and there’s a weather-related way to remember.

“Spring forward, fall back”

Simple as that. That’s the simple mnemonic (handy phrase to help you remember things) to remind you to turn your clocks forwards in the spring and backwards in the fall – or in the autumn as we Australians call it.

READ MORE: Don’t make this common daylight saving mistake

Reverting back to Australian Eastern Standard Time as daylight saving ends means that:

• From 3am this Sunday, there will be no gap between clocks in Australia’s three largest cities, as Brisbane catches up to Melbourne and Sydney.
• Adelaide, Darwin and Alice Springs will all be back on the same time, rather than the NT being an hour behind SA.
• Perth will now be just two hours behind the southeastern states, not three.

If you live in a state where daylight saving is about to end, you will get to relive the hour between 2am and 3am in the closest your life will ever come to the movie Groundhog Day.

While you’ll have less light for outdoors activities in the evenings from Sunday onwards, you will gain some extra light in the morning – although this will be negated as days shorten with winter approaching.

READ MORE: Our story from 2023 about Australia’s smallest, strangest (unofficial) time zone

From a meteorological reporting point of view, maximum temperatures can now be expected to occur slightly earlier in the day in states that revert back to regular time.

And for those wondering, the official term is daylight saving (singular), not daylight savings (plural).