Strawberry Moon: When To Watch Last Supermoon Of 2021 In Glendora

GLENDORA, CA — The 2021 sky has another treat in store: after a year full of supermoons, one of the biggest will grace the skies over Glendora this Thursday night.

The last of three 2021 supermoons will be called the Strawberry Moon, but that’s not because it will resemble a big red strawberry. Instead, various Indigenous tribes welcomed the June moon as the start of the strawberry-picking season. But scientists say the moon will look a bit more like a peach.

“It’ll look goldish,” astrophysicist Jackie Faherty told NPR. “It can have a tiny bit of a red tinge to it depending on what’s in the atmosphere, but mostly it will look like a nice yellow.”

So when will be the best time to take in another celestial wonder in Glendora? According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, the moon will rise Thursday night at 8:34 p.m. and set Friday morning at 5:23 a.m. The moon will reach its highest point at 12:25 a.m.

The sky will be partly cloudy, according to the National Weather Service, and the illumination will be a dazzling 100 percent.

Travel up north and the moon may take on a reddish hue, according to NASA. “The full moon nearest the summer solstice shines through more atmosphere than at other times of the year, making it more likely to have a reddish color, for the same reasons that sunrises and sunsets are red,” the agency said.

The moon is known by other names related to the summer fruits, flowers, drinks, and weather that follow it: it has been called a “hot moon,” a “mead moon,” a “rose moon,” and a “honey moon.” It is unknown whether the modern word “honeymoon” is related to the strawberry moon.

Thursday’s moon will be somewhat farther away from the Earth than the other supermoons, at 224,662 miles away, according to the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Because it is closer to the Earth than other full moons, it is expected to be about 7 percent bigger and 15 percent brighter than the usual full moon.

The strawberry moon will also be one of the year’s most colorful. The moon’s low, shallow path across the sky means that the moonlight will travel through more of the Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in the yellow tint.