JACKSON, Wyo. — Get ready to welcome the first supermoon of 2024.
August’s full moon will rise over Jackson on Monday, Aug. 19, appearing full and bright through Wednesday morning. This will be the first of four consecutive supermoons this year, with supermoons rising in September, October and November. To qualify as a supermoon, a new or full moon must occur within 90% of the moon’s closest approach to the Earth along its elliptical orbit, according to NASA.
Monday’s full moon will also be a blue moon. A blue moon colloquially refers to the second full moon in one calendar month, but it can also apply to the third full moon in a season that will have four full moons.
According to the Royal Museums Greenwich, the “blue moon” nickname might have nothing to do with the color.
Quite where the term blue moon came from is unclear. It may be a mispronunciation of the disused word “belewe” which means “to betray.” This may be a reference to the betrayal of the usual idea of having one full moon in each month or perhaps the “betrayal” by the Moon of worshippers attempting to determine the position and duration of Lent in the calendar year.
August’s full moon has been referred to as the Sturgeon Moon because the giant sturgeon of the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain were most readily caught during this part of summer, per the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Sturgeon fish have been traced back to around 136 million years ago but are rare today due to overfishing in the 19th century.
The Nêhiyawak (Cree) call the August full moon the “Flying Up Moon,” which describes the time when young birds are finally ready to take the leap and learn to fly. Other names include the “Corn Moon” (Anishnabek, Ojibwe), the “Harvest Moon” (Dakota), the “Ricing Moon” (Anishinaabe) and the “Black Cherries Moon” (Assiniboine). The Tlingit people of the Pacific Northwest traditionally called this time of the season the “Mountain Shadows Moon.”
According to Old Farmer’s Almanac, these names signify that this is the time to gather maturing crops or harvest wild fruits that have ripened.
