This New Year’s visit to family in the Haliburton area was brilliantly wintery: unusually cold, two feet of powdery snow, windless, and sunny. Great conditions for enjoying the outside, and for appreciating the wood stove.

New Year’s Eve day 2017, in the Haliburton area. (Author’s photo)

The moon on New Year’s Eve was spectacular. It was big and bright. With all the light reflected on the snow there was enough light for a walk in the woods.  It was also approaching -30C – so more of a quick look into the woods!

 

The moon was nearly a supermoon, which is when the moon is closest to the Earth and full.  It was almost a Wolf Moon too, which means the first full moon of the year.  According to EarthSky.org, both these things will happen this 2nd of January.

 

I’ve never heard of a Wolf Moon, and I think I only heard of a supermoon this past year. Why is it Wolf Moon, two words, but supermoon, one word? So many moon terms: new moon, blue moon, harvest moon, and let’s not forget Sailor Moon.

 

Resources

Bruce McClure and Deborah Byrd, “2018’s closest supermoon is January 1st,” 1 January 2018, EarthSky, http://earthsky.org/space/what-is-a-supermoon (accessed 1 January 2018)

  • This piece has information about supermoons, the origin of the term “supermoon”, and lots of content on related topics.

“Supermoon,” English Oxford Living Dictionaries, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/supermoon (accessed 1 January 2018)

 

“January: Wolf Moon,” timeanddate.com, https://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/moon/wolf.html (accessed 1 January 2018)

 

@NASAMoon, https://twitter.com/NASAMoon

 

Citation

Nathan Smith, “NYE Moon,” 1 January 2018, HIS241.com, http://www.his241.com/?p=421