February’s complete moon takes place on Tuesday, Feb. 19.

When is the full snow moon?

This is a great one, as moons go, being the second (and brightest) of 3 “supermoons” in2019 So-called supermoons appear bigger and brighter than ordinary full moons due to the fact that the moon is at its perigee, the point in its orbit when it’s closest to the Earth. This occurs in between 2 and four times a year.

This moon will appear full from Sunday night through Wednesday because it’s lined up opposite the sun (to those people seeing from Earth). The very best time to view is at moonrise on Feb.19 Inspect the specific time for your location here

What is the full snow moon?

The reality that it’s called a “snow moon” has absolutely nothing to do with either of these interesting facts. According to the Farmers’ Almanac, it’s since it falls in the month of February. In the US, different Native American people had numerous names for the various moons of the year, tied to natural phenomena that dependably took place together with them. February is a snowy month in the northern and eastern US; thus the complete “snow” moon. It was also known as the “hunger” moon, which is not as capitivating a label.

At NASA, Gordon Johnston composes that historically the identifying of the moons wasn’t as tied to the calendar months as the attributes of the seasons. This full moon is also the last one of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and by this categorization it also would have passed the names “crow,” “worm,” “crust,” “sap,” or “sugar” moon, depending on the local conditions that were most popular. (That is, the return of spring wildlife, snow conditions, and stage in the maple sap cycle, respectively.)

A minimum of these seasonal demarcations for various moons have more historic resonance than “blood moon,” which is a remarkable thing to call a total lunar eclipse. As Elijah Wolfson reported for Quartz, the term likely come from in 2014 with apocalyptic prophecies promoted by fringe Christian pastors, however rapidly ended up being a media go-to to describe every total lunar eclipse. This was sustained by the unrelenting march of seo, the strategy by which websites draw in readers by taking advantage of popular search terms. (Complete disclosure: I went into the information of all this because “snow moon” was trending on Google. Hi Googlers!)

The moon is remarkable, and worth appreciating at any time, be it full or not, snowy or not. And perhaps marveling at a full moon is a healthy month-to-month routine, a suggestion to slow down and savor the other qualities of our varying natural world. Admittedly, that’s something we tend to miss out on when we’re glued to our screens looking for realities about the “very snow moon” radiant overhead.