Full "Snow Moon" for February 2020 -- Feb. 9 (Sunday)

coverage in www.almanac.com/ [Old Farmer's Almanac ]

In ancient times, people across Europe and Native Americans used the Moon to track the seasons. In the lunar calendar, names were often given to each month’s Moon. (If this sounds odd to you, remember that our current calendar is based on the Sun and the solar year!)

Traditionally, the Moon we see in February is called the Snow Moon due to the typically heavy snowfall of February. On average, February is the USA’s snowiest month, according to data from the National Weather Service.

Other February full Moon names include:

• the “Shoulder to Shoulder Around the Fire Moon” (from the Wishram people of the Pacific Northwest)
• the “No Snow in the Trails Moon” (Zuni, of the Southwest)
• the “Bone Moon” (Cherokee, of the Southeast). The Bone Moon meant that there was so little food that people gnawed on bones and ate bone marrow soup.

Moon Facts and Folklore

• On February 6, 1971, Alan Shepard became the first man to hit a golf ball on the Moon.

• Did you know that the Moon’s diameter is 2,160 miles? This is less than the width of the United States (approximately 3,000 miles), and 0.27 of Earth’s diameter (7,926 miles).

• Wolves have howled at the Moon for centuries, yet it is still there.

• And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, they danced by the light of the Moon.
  —Edward Lear, English poet (1812-88)