With the Harvest Moon, we now fully embrace the Autumn season as we quickly journey towards Winter. The Harvest Moon is a marker in the cycles of the changing of seasons, and is a culmination of energy from the Summer Season.
Usually this Full Moon happens in the month of September…īut this year, 2020, the Harvest Full Moon is on October 1st at 2:05 p.m. Times and dates are based on the local time in Odesa.The Harvest Full Moon refers to the Full Moon that is the closest to the Autumn Equinox. Times for the Harvest Moon vary by time zone.
Topics: Moon, Calendar, Seasons, Months, September, October Harvest Moon 2021 Harvest Moon is also the name of a popular computer game, as well as a 1992 album and song by Canadian musician Neil Young. In the US, there are many Harvest Moon festivals with farmers markets, beer- and wine-tasting, craft fairs, concerts, and entertainment. For example, the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, is a harvest festival also celebrated in Vietnam, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. The September equinox coincides with many cultural events, religious observances, and customs around the world. People in the Southern Hemisphere experience the Harvest Moon effect around the March equinox instead. Here, the Moon rises more than 50 minutes later than on the previous day around the Harvest Moon. The reverse effect occurs in the Southern Hemisphere, where the astronomical seasons are opposite, and the September equinox is the vernal equinox. How can Full Moon be in the daytime? Opposite Seasons In the old days, the early moonrise for a few days around the equinox meant that farmers could work and harvest their crops for a longer time in the evenings. However, for a few days around the Harvest Moon, the Moon rises less than 50 minutes later than the day before. Typically, the Moon rises on average 50 minutes later every day in a lunar month, which is the time it takes the Moon to travel through all the Moon phases. The Full Moon closest to the September equinox is astronomically special because the time between one moonrise to the next becomes shorter around this time.
Regardless of where the name originated, the astronomical significance of the Harvest Moon is the same all over the Northern Hemisphere. When is the next Supermoon? Short Time Between Moonrises The earlier Pagan and Native American month names have since been reintroduced as Full Moon names, particularly by various Farmer's Almanacs in the United States. When the Julian calendar was introduced in 45 BCE, the Latin month names became more common. However, this is not to be confused with a total lunar eclipse, also known as a Blood Moon, due to the reddish color the Moon takes on during a total eclipse. The October Full Moon was called Hunters Moon, Blood Moon, and Sanguine Moon by different Native tribes. The most common Native American names for the September Full Moon is Full Corn Moon and Barley Moon, and these names do not vary with the equinox. However, it seems that a combination of Native American, Anglo-Saxon, and Germanic month names gave birth to the Full Moon names we use today.īlue Moon: A Full Moon with no name Named After Crops The Old Farmer's Almanac famously publishes a list of Full Moon names, and we have chosen to use these as the main Full Moon names. A common explanation is that Colonial Americans adopted many of the Native American names and incorporated them into the modern calendar. Today, we use many of these ancient month names as Full Moon names. Many of these names are very similar or identical. From Europe and Americaįor millennia, people across Europe, as well as Native American tribes, named the months after features they associated with the Northern Hemisphere seasons. In ancient times, it was common to track the changing seasons by following the lunar month rather than the solar year, which the 12 months in our modern calendar are based on. Others point out that Harvest month was recorded as early as in the 700s in both Anglo-Saxon and Old High German languages. Some sources claim the name originates from ancient Native American tradition. Harvest Moon is the most famous of all the Full Moon names. When are the Full Moons this year? Full Moon Names Most years, the Harvest Moon is in September, but around every three years, it is in October. The Harvest Moon is the Full Moon nearest the September equinox, which occurs around September 22. The Harvest Moon in 2016 was a Supermoon.