As of Sunday, March 12, 2017, Haiti will reinstate Daylight Saving Time, by moving their clocks forward 1 hour. This was done at 02:00 or 2 AM, and the clocks were pushed forward to 03:00 or 3 AM.

 

Why Was DST Reintroduced in Haiti?

 

Yves Germain Joseph, the Secretary General of the Presidency in Haiti, made the initial announcement about the time change. He told the public on Friday, March 10, 2017, two days before DST would go into effect.

 

He also made it clear that clocks will return back to standard time on Sunday, November 1, 2017.

 

This change was made so that the country will stay in sync with the United States.

 

Normally, Haiti remains on Eastern Standard Time or EST, which has a UTC offset of -5 (5 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time). When DST goes into effect, the country will now be on Eastern Daylight Time or EDT, which is only 4 hours behind UTC.

 

Haiti Changes DST Often

 

This is not the first time the country has observed - or abolished - Daylight Saving. They have made several time changes over the years, one of the most recent just over a year ago.

 

Last year, merely two days before DST would go into effect, they announced it would not be observed. You can see that pattern is not much different from the recent change, which was made on the Friday before DST.

 

Image by Blue Skyz Studios (Flickr)