LONG ISLAND, N.Y. — The last full moon of winter, Saturday's Snow Full Moon, is also a “micromoon,” though Long Island sky watchers might not notice the subtle nuances that make it different.
A micromoon is a full moon that occurs when the moon is farthest from Earth or at apogee. It appears about 14 percent smaller and 30 percent darker than usual.
It's the opposite of the more widely understood supermoon — that is, a full moon that appears slightly larger and brighter than usual as it makes its closest approach to Earth in its elliptical orbit, called perigee, according to NASA. To see a supermoon, you'll have to wait until the blue moon in August, the first of four consecutive supermoons.
On Saturday, the full snow moon rises at 5:54 p.m. in Long Island and reaches its highest point in the sky at 12 AM.
February's full moon is often called a snow moon for obvious reasons, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac, which cites National Weather Service data showing that February, on average, is the nation's snowiest month.
Native Americans gave names to the moon each month to track the season, but some of the names also come from colonial American and European cultures.
Other names given to the February moon are associated with animals, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac. The Cree traditionally called it the bald eagle or simply the eagle moon, the Ojibwe called it the bear moon, the Tlinget called it the black bear moon, the Dakota called it the raccoon moon, some Algonquin people called it the old man's moon, and the Haida called it the goose moon.
For sky watchers planning their calendars, meteor showers continue into April. The Lyrids meteor shower runs its show from April 16-29, peaking on the night of April 22-23. A peak full moon could make this show a wash. The Lyrids produce about 18 meteors per hour at peak, but are known for bright dust trails that last for several seconds.
The big event that month is the Great American Solar Eclipse of 2024. Some 31 million US residents live in places that will see darkness during the day, with only the sharp corona of our yellow star visible as the moon passes between in it and the Earth.
Another 1 to 4 million people will make the pilgrimage to states in the path of totality – Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
