Here's when Daylight Saving Time will finally bring later sunsets in Ontario

With dreary skies and a brutal, icy winter storm sweeping across the province this week, you're probably already dreaming about the days when you won't need to check your weather app to know it'll be sunny and warm outside.

While it might not seem like it, brighter (and longer) days are on the horizon.

Clocks across Ontario are set to "spring forward" for daylight saving time on Sunday, March 8. Although the annual ritual means sacrificing one hour of sleep as clocks jump from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m., it also delivers something many of us have been craving for months: later sunsets.

With the time change set to arrive in less than three weeks, you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that we've officially made it past the 10 darkest weeks of the year with the least amount of daylight hours, which spans from mid-November to late January.

According to data from timeanddate.com, Toronto hasn't seen a sunset past 6 p.m. since Nov. 1, and throughout all of December, sunsets took place before 5 p.m. Following the winter solstice on Dec. 21, sunsets finally started to inch closer to the 5 p.m. mark.

By next week, Toronto is set to see its first sunset after 6 p.m. in over 100 days. As clocks shift forward on March 8, the province will immediately be treated to later sunsets, with that Sunday's sunset set to occur at 7:15 p.m.

By mid-April, Toronto's sunsets will start to arrive after 8 p.m., and by mid-June, we'll begin to enter that glorious post-9 p.m. sunset stretch.

With the start of daylight saving time just around the corner, criticisms of the twice-annual ritual have once again resurfaced, with many calling the practice outdated and pointless.

Over the years, several provinces, including Ontario, have expressed their desire to ditch the ritual, although officials, such as Premier Doug Ford, have stated that any permanent changes would depend on New York State, which would also have to get rid of the practice.

In New York, multiple pieces of legislation concerning daylight saving time have been introduced, although the state has yet to pass any of them.

In Canada, Yukon eliminated the twice-yearly time change altogether in March 2020, and most of Saskatchewan keeps its clocks the same year-round.