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The saying goes "Once in a Blue Moon", but just what is a blue moon?



There are two schools of thought when describing a blue moon. One says that it is the second full moon of a given month. But many believe this does not allow for the rarity factor attributed to a blue moon. Most scientists and weather watchers will tell you that a blue moon is the thirteenth full moon of a tropical year. In layman's terms, this means that in a tropical year (which runs from Winter Soltice to Winter Soltice) there is typically 12 full moons. This allows three for each season. When a particular season has an additional full moon, it is a blue moon.


Each moon within the tropical calendar is given its own name, such as harvest moon, blood moon, fruit moon, etc. The actual pattern is as follows:


January Full Moon - Snow Moon

February Full Moon - Ice Moon

March Full Moon - Storm Moon

April Full Moon -Pink Moon

May Full Moon - Flower Moon

June Full Moon - Mead Moon

July Full Moon - Hay Moon

August Full Moon - Corn Moon

September Full Moon - Harvest Moon

October Full Moon - Blood Moon

November Full Moon - Beaver Moon

December Full Moon - Cold Moon


Of course, there are multiple schools of thought with the names as well.


The idea of a blue moon being so rare is not a new one. Some historians mark the phrase as being at least 400 years old. The literal meaning is to be that of an event that never happens. Reality proves that blue moons occur on an average of about once every two and a half years.



So, is this blue moon an astrological curiousity? Not really. A full moon has the same astrological interpretations no matter it the first, second or fiftieth of a month. The truth of the blue moon is that it is of no special matter at all.


The true rarity is a month having no full moon at all. This event only occurs in the month of February and only four times a century. Depending on the method used to calculate a blue moon, this event would force the months of January and of March to each have a blue moon. Hence this makes it even rarer indeed.


As you can see in this diagram, the two full moons a month rule allows for multiple blue moons a year, while the Maine rule, which alots 12 per tropical year and the 13th as the blue moon, makes this occasion much more rare, indeed.

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