The first weekend of November will see a luminous and gorgeous Beaver moon gracing the sky. The bright November moon is also called Frost moon and can be seen in its full glory on Saturday night.
The Beaver moon will be at its fullest at about 1:25 a.m. EDT Saturday morning. In fact, the moon will appear full to the naked eyes even in the hours immediately preceding and succeeding this time.
Beaver Moon VS Supermoon
Though the Beaver moon will have a dazzling appearance, it will not quite be a supermoon. In fact, it will miss being a supermoon by just one day. To qualify as a supermoon, the moon has to be full on the day it is at its perigee, which implies its nearest location to Earth.
The moon reached its perigee on Friday this month, thereby missing out on the chance to be classified as a supermoon. However, since the moon is still quite near to Earth, it will appear brighter and bigger than it normally does and only the supermoon, which can be seen next month, will appear larger than it.
The Beaver moon gets its name from the time of the year when Algonquin tribes and early colonists set their beaver traps before the swamps froze, ensuring a good supply of warm winter furs. The name Frost moon comes from the fact that this moon coincides with the first frost of the year.
The Moon And Its Many Monikers
The concept of having different names for the full moon can be traced back to Native American tribes who inhabited the land of what is now the eastern and northern United States. The tribes gave distinctive names to each recurring moon to keep a track of the seasons. In addition, the name of the moon applied to all its phases in the entire month.
Later on, the early Europeans who set home in the country followed the custom and created their own names for the moon. For those confused about all the names, the full moon goes by, and don’t know why a pink moon is supposed to be different from a blood moon, here is a quick refresher.
The January full moon is referred to as Wolf moon because wolf packs howled outside the villages of the Native American tribes. The February moon is called Snow moon because it snows the heaviest during this month. March heralds the Worm moon that implies that as the grounds begins to thaw, due to rising temperatures, earthworm casts begin to appear.
The April moon is called Pink moon after one of the earliest widespread spring flower, the wild ground phlox or herb moss pink. May’s moon goes by the name Flower moon due to the abundance of flowers during the month. June's moon was christened after strawberries.
July’s moon is called Buck moon because it is the time when new antlers appear on the foreheads of buck deer. August is the month of Sturgeon moon because these fish are found and caught in abundance in the major water bodies and the Great Lakes of the United States.
September brings in the Harvest moon marking corn harvest, while October experiences Blood or Hunter’s moon - referring to the season when leaves are falling, deer are fattened and it is time to store up the meat for the cold months ahead.
November has its Beaver moon and the December moon is referred to as the Cold moon because this is when winter starts taking its strong grip on the land.
