March’s moon won’t officially reach its zenith until Monday, March 9, but it will start to have that full-moon look when it rises in the sky Sunday night. This full-moon effect will stretch through Tuesday night.
The first full moon of meteorological spring is known as the Full Worm Moon. And as a bonus for sky-watchers, it will be a supermoon, too, coming amid a season of winter/spring supermoons in 2020.
About the name:
The Worm Moon also goes by a handful of other names, depending on the geographic area.
“As the full Moon in March and the last full Moon of winter, this Moon is called the Crow Moon, Crust Moon, Sap Moon, Sugar Moon, or Worm Moon,” according to a NASA blog by Gordon Johnston. “The more northern tribes of the northeastern United States knew this as the Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signaled the end of winter. Other northern names were the Crust Moon, because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing by night, or the Sap (or Sugar) Moon as this is the time for tapping maple trees.”
The Old Farmer’s Almanac says it’s called the Worm Moon because earthworms and grubs tend to come out of their winter dormant stage about now, marking a sign of spring.
NASA blog did a deeper dive on the “worm” moniker: “The tribes more to the south called this the Worm Moon after the earthworm casts that appear as the ground thaws. It makes sense that only the southern tribes called this the Worm Moon. When glaciers covered the northern part of North America they wiped out the native earthworms. After these glaciers melted about 12,000 years ago the more northern forests grew back without earthworms. The earthworms in these areas now are mostly invasive species introduced from Europe and Asia.”
A Supermoon Season
We’ve got a handful of supermoons in early 2020, the number differing depending on which sources you look to for your celestial info.
First, know that a “supermoon” gets its label when a full moon coincides with perigee or near-perigee, which is the point at which the moon is at its closest orbital approach to Earth. When these full moons rise, they appear bigger and brighter to the human eye.
NASA says this describes four full moons this year: “For 2020, the four full Moons from February to May meet this 90% threshold, with the full Moons in March and April nearly tied. The full Moon next month will be slightly closer to the Earth (about 0.1%) than this March full Moon.”
The Farmer’s Almanac is touting three supermoons this year, with this weekend’s Worm Moon being the first.
Supermoon over Auburn, Ala., Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. (Julie Bennett/jbennett@al.com) Julie BennettJulie Bennett
So however you count your supermoons this year, this weekend’s orb lands on both lists.
READ MORE:
Spring to get its earliest start in more than a century
3 supermoons, an extra full moon, a blue moon and a micro-moon all to occur in 2020
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiV2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm1saXZlLmNvbS9uZXdzLzIwMjAvMDMvbWFyY2hzLWZ1bGwtd29ybS1zdXBlcm1vb24tdG8tcmlzZS10aGlzLXdlZWtlbmQuaHRtbNIBZmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lm1saXZlLmNvbS9uZXdzLzIwMjAvMDMvbWFyY2hzLWZ1bGwtd29ybS1zdXBlcm1vb24tdG8tcmlzZS10aGlzLXdlZWtlbmQuaHRtbD9vdXRwdXRUeXBlPWFtcA?oc=5
2020-03-07 17:06:39Z
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