If your windowsills or balcony are covered in that white, powdery fluff known as snow as you gaze outside on a winter evening, perhaps, it might be clear how the February full moon got its name.
Various cultures have given rise to a host of different names for this month’s full moon, of course. But the name we probably use most commonly in America is Snow Moon—alluding to the winter weather in February.
Reportedly, the colonial explorer Captain Jonathan Caver, from Massachusetts, wrote of his visit with the Dakota people that they called it the Snow Moon, “because more snow commonly falls during this month more than any other in winter.” And that lunar moniker has stuck ever since.
Regardless of how much snow sits on your window sills, though, the Snow Moon is set to fall on Saturday, February 24, at exactly 7:30 a.m. EST. For people in the Western Hemisphere, that will be in the morning, and the moon will be below the horizon—full moons may fall above or below the horizon and do not correspond with the Earth’s daily rotation.
Instead, they follow the lunar cycle, corresponding to the moon’s monthly orbit and determining its fullness or lack thereof.
A “Micro” Snow Moon?
Getting to see February’s full moon will be made imperceptibly more difficult by the fact that it will be what is called a “micro moon.” Rising in the east, it will reach very high in the sky by midnight—as mid-winter moons always do. However, it will seem slightly smaller than usual from our terrestrial vantage point. And the reason is fascinating.A micro moon is, essentially, the opposite of a super moon—where the moon seems larger. It’s the same principle at work in both cases. Namely, the moon’s orbit is not exactly circular (nor are the vast majority of other orbits in the cosmos) where the distance between the moon and Earth is fixed. Its orbit is elliptical, and so its distance from Earth varies constantly, sometimes moving nearer and other times farther away. The nearest point, called its perigee, gives rise to super moons; the point farthest away, its apogee, causes micro moons.
Given that the moon will reach apogee on February 24, this coincides very closely with its peak fullness. The difference in size and brightness will be minuscule, however, probably not noticeable to the unaided human eye.
A “Dark Moon” in February
Eleven months in the calendar year have at least one full moon—and sometimes even two—occurring in the same month. February is the one oddball exception to that rule. For as we know, it’s the shortest month of the year and, even more oddly, sports an extra day on leap years.Thus, very rarely, just once every 19 years, there will be no full moons in February. One will appear right before and one right after, but the full moon will slip right by February itself, continuing along its tour of the calendar year like nothing happened. This happenstance is what’s called a “dark moon.” The last dark moon was in February 2018. We will not see another until 2037.
