This Halloween, Look for the Hunter’s Blue Moon

The second full moon of the month gives Halloween an extra spooky atmosphere.

This October is flanked by full moons. October 1 featured an unusually late Harvest Moon, and on October 31, we’ll get an encore—a Hunter’s Blue Moon, Ashley Strickland reports for CNN.

The name “blue moon” doesn’t mean that the full moon will literally take on a blue hue, but that it is the second full moon in a single month. Blue moons only happen about every two and a half years. The last one rose on March 31, 2018, Tim Sharp wrote for Space.com in 2018. As the full moon following the Harvest Moon, the full moon that will rise on Halloween is also known as the Hunter’s Moon. And because the moon is within a day of reaching the furthest point from Earth along its orbit, the Halloween full moon will also appear about 14 percent smaller than the supermoon that appeared this April, Joe Rao explains for Space.com this month.

Halloween’s full moon is also called a Hunter’s moon. The Hunter’s moon always follows the Harvest moon, which is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox on September 22. The Harvest moon may have gotten its name because farmers could use the light of the moon to extend their workday even as daylight hours shortened, and so they could finish harvesting fall crops before the first frost. The Hunter’s moon is a reference to the way that humans and animals can use this time to stock up on food for the winter ahead, per the Old Farmer’s Almanac.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/halloween-look-hunters-blue-moon-180976134/