Full Moons are the same worldwide, well, not exactly. Like everything else in the celestial sphere, the Moon looks different depending on the hemisphere you’re in. The north and south hemispheres show seemingly inverted Moons versus each other. Trust me, it’s not the Moon. It’s your location. Constellations too look upside down in the southern hemisphere vs the northern hemisphere.
Guess what, the seasons are inverted too! If you didn’t know, our spring is the southern hemisphere’s fall, our summer = their winter, and so on. I’ll start with northern hemisphere Full Moon names.
Common Northern Hemisphere Full Moon Names – I’ll do the southern hemisphere next week.
January: Wolf Moon (Old European), for the howling, hungry wolves of winter.
February: Snow Moon (Old European), for the heavy snowfall. Also called Hunger Moon or Bear Moon (Native American), Storm Moon, Ice Moon.
March: Worm Moon (Native American), for worms emerging from the ground and tree bark. Also called Crow Moon, Sap Moon, Snow Crust Moon by Native Americans.
April: Pink Moon (Native American), for the emergence of pink Phlox flowers. Also called Breaking Ice Moon or Moon of the Red Grass Appearing. Old European names include Egg Moon, Budding Moon, New Shoots Moon, Seed Moon, Growing Moon.
May: Flower Moon (Native American), for the abundance of flowers. Also called Budding Moon, Egg Laying Moon, Planting Moon. Old European names include Milk Moon, Mother’s Moon, Bright Moon, Hare Moon, Grass Moon.
June: Strawberry Moon (Native American), for the little red wild strawberries. Also called Berries Ripen Moon, Green Corn Moon, Hot Moon. Old European names include Meade Moon, Horse Moon, Dylan Moon, Rose Moon, Flower Moon, Planting Moon.
July: Buck Moon (Native American), for the emergence of a buck’s antlers. Also called Salmon Moon, Raspberry Moon, Thunder Moon. Old European names include Claiming Moon, Wyrt Moon, Herb Moon, Meade Moon, Hay Moon.
August: Sturgeon Moon (Native American), for the abundance of lake Sturgeon. Old European names include Dispute Moon, Lynx Moon, Grain Moon, Corn Moon, Lightning Moon.
September: Harvest or Corn Moon (Corn-Native American, Harvest-Old European). It’s the Harvest Moon more often because it occurs in September and falls on or near the September equinox (September 22).
October: Hunter or Harvest Moon (Both-Old European). Also Seed Fall Moon. Native American names include Drying Rice Moon, Falling Leaves Moon, Freezing Moon. It becomes the Harvest Moon when the September Full Moon misses the equinox, every three years.
November: Beaver Moon (Native American). Also Frost Moon or Freezing Moon.
December: Cold Moon (?). Old European names include Moon Before Yule, Long Night Moon (December Solstice).
What’s in the Sky?
Total Eclipse of the May Flower Full Moon, our first total lunar eclipse of 2022. Sunday, May 15, in the east. It’s a Perigean (closest) Full Moon (so-called Super) and should become a Blood Moon (reddish) too.
Partial (visible) phase starts at 9:28pm CDT on the 15th. Total eclipse begins at 10:29 pm and ends at 11:54pm.
The visible eclipse is over at 12:56am, 05/16. Hope