Full moon calendar 2026 & 2027

Full moons of 2026 (a 13-moon year)

Times shown in your local time zone.

Full moons of 2027

Times shown in your local time zone.

The traditional names, month by month

The names are folklore rather than astronomy: month labels popularized by the Old Farmer's Almanac, drawing on Native American (notably Algonquian), colonial American and European traditions. They describe the season, never the Moon's color or size.

The Harvest Moon rule

One name does not follow the month table. The Harvest Moon is properly the full moon nearest the September equinox, which falls in September about three years in four but can slip into early October. Around that date, at mid-northern latitudes, the Moon rises only 20-30 minutes later each evening instead of the usual 50, keeping the early night bright for the harvest, which is the whole point of the name. The effect strengthens farther north and runs in reverse south of the equator, where the March equinox full moon plays the same role. In 2026 the full moon nearest the equinox (September 23, 2026) falls on September 26, 2026, so the strict rule and the month table agree. In 2027 the nearest full moon to the equinox (September 23, 2027) is September 15, 2027, and again the two agree.

Supermoons and micromoons, honestly

The Moon's distance swings between about 356,000 and 407,000 kilometers, so some full moons are genuinely closer and larger than others: a perigee full moon ("supermoon", within about 360,000 km) appears up to 14% wider and shines about 30% brighter than an apogee one ("micromoon"). Side by side the difference would be obvious, but on any single night almost nobody could tell; the famous giant Moon near the horizon is an illusion in your brain, not perigee. The distance column above marks every super and micro full moon in this window.

A caution about counting: there is no official supermoon cutoff. This page draws a fixed line at 360,000 kilometers, the common rule of thumb, and flags near misses in the notes. Looser rules based on each orbit's own perigee, like Fred Espenak's, count those near misses as full supermoons, which is why one site's "two supermoons" is another's "four". The distances are the facts; the label is a convention. Our supermoon and micromoon reference takes the whole story apart, tides, moon illusion and all.

Frequently asked questions

When is the next full moon?

The next full moon comes on July 29, 2026 at 14:36 UTC: the Buck Moon. The tables on this page list every full moon of 2026 and 2027 with exact times.

Where do full moon names like Wolf Moon come from?

They are folklore, not astronomy: traditional month names popularized by the Old Farmer's Almanac, drawing on Native American (notably Algonquian), colonial American and European traditions. Different cultures used different names; the set on this page is simply the one that stuck in popular use.

What is a blue moon?

In today's common usage, a blue moon is the second full moon inside one calendar month, which happens about every two and a half years because lunations run 29.5 days. The older rule, reconstructed by Sky & Telescope in 1999 from the Maine Farmers' Almanac, named the third full moon in an astronomical season that holds four; the monthly version was born when a 1946 article in the same magazine misread that practice, and it stuck. Both kinds are flagged in the tables above. One honest wrinkle: whether two full moons share a month can depend on your time zone; this page applies the rule to Universal Time.

What makes a full moon a supermoon?

The Moon's orbit is an ellipse, so full moons happen at varying distances. When one occurs within roughly 360,000 kilometers of Earth it is popularly called a supermoon: up to about 14% wider and 30% brighter than a full moon at apogee. The difference is real but subtle to the unaided eye. There is no official cutoff: this page draws a fixed line at 360,000 kilometers, while looser perigee-based rules such as Fred Espenak's count a few more each year, which is why published supermoon tallies disagree. The word itself was coined in astrology; astronomers have learned to live with it.

Why do some years have 13 full moons?

Twelve lunations take about 354 days, 11 short of the solar year, so the extra days accumulate and roughly every third year fits in a thirteenth full moon. Those are the years with a monthly blue moon; a seasonal blue moon can fall in an ordinary 12-moon year, because seasons and calendar months slice the year differently.

Keep exploring: the interactive Moon Phase Calendar for any month of any year, The Moon for its live almanac, how the phases actually work, and our eclipse calendar for the full moons that pass through Earth's shadow.