NEW YORK — January's full wolf moon, rising around 4:50 p.m. on Thursday, is the first full moon of 2024.
Whether you can enjoy our natural satellite at peak light – which actually happens at 12:45 p.m. EST, hours before sunrise – will depend on sky conditions. According to the National Weather Service forecast from Upton, the forecast doesn't look good: Skies on Long Island will be cloudy, “very cloudy,” the NWS said.
If you want to howl at the moon like a wolf, it rises on the eastern horizon around sunset—that's roughly between 4:50 p.m. to 5 p.m., depending on location. Skies are also expected to be cloudy at that time, the NWS said. Around midnight, it will brighten brightly overhead, but on Long Island, cloudy skies will remain, the NWS said. It will set in the western sky around 7:30 Friday morning.
According to tradition, the January full moon became known as the wolf full moon because wolves howl at this time of year when they are hungry, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac.
Wolves may be starving, depending on the availability of prey, but there is a more primal explanation for their long, seemingly mournful howls, which can be heard miles away. January is the start of the breeding season for wolves.
“Howling is for long-distance communication to gather a pack and keep strangers away,” according to the National Wildlife Federation.
Howling is just one way wolves communicate. They also use body language, mark their territories with scent, and bark and growl. Much of their communication is about reinforcing the pack's social hierarchy, according to the NWF.
This communication also includes submissive behavior. A wolf unwilling to challenge the hierarchy often bends over and whines, tucks into its tail, licks the other wolf's mouth or rolls onto its back, the organization said. If the opposite is true and a wolf wants to challenge the status quo, it will often growl and lay its ears back.
Native Americans and settlers often gave each month's full moon a name to track the seasons, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac. January's full moon is also known as the Central Moon, a name given by the Assiniboine people of the Northern Great Plains because it falls about halfway through the cold winter season.
It has also been called cold moon or frost blast by the Cree, frozen moon by the Algonquin, and hard moon or hard moon by the Dakota.
