Snow Moon May Be A Supermoon: Best Time To See It In NoVA, DC

WASHINGTON, DC — This weekend — if the weather cooperates — DC area skywatchers can catch a glimpse of a lunar trifecta: A full moon that is also a “snow moon” and is also a supermoon. Regardless of the label, you’ll be able to see the moon in northern Virginia and the District of Columbia when it reaches peak fullness at 2:34 a.m. Eastern Standard Time on Sunday.

A supermoon occurs when the moon’s closest approach to Earth — scientifically, when the moon is at perigee — in its monthly elliptical orbit coincides with a full moon. It isn’t actually any bigger, though it appears to be up to 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger.

A full moon is this: A full moon is the lunar phase when the Earth is exactly 180 degrees opposite the sun and appears fully illuminated from our perspective on Earth.

And a snow moon? It’s a full moon that occurs during wintery February.

You probably don’t want to — and shouldn’t — stay up half the night to see the super snow moon. At peak fullness, it will look like a glaring orb in the sky, and is much more impressive as it hugs the horizon around sunset on Saturday and sunrise on Sunday. Actually, the moon is going to look big and bright on Friday and Monday, too.

The National Weather Service’s weekend forecast for DC/northern Virginia calls for mostly cloudy skies both Saturday and Sunday nights, but no snow.

The reason the moon appears bigger and brighter during a supermoon is a bit puzzling, but scientists suggest it’s a trick of the mind — a “moon illusion.” It could be the brain is just wired to compare the size of the moon to other objects near the horizon, or to view things near the horizon as larger than those in the sky, according to Space.com.

And despite all the hype surrounding supermoons, it’s going to be hard for the naked eye to discern the difference “unless you’re a very careful moon-watcher,” Sky & Telescope magazine senior editor Alan MacRobert said in 2016.

Back to the debate over whether the February full snow moon is actually a supermoon: It depends on whom you ask.

Retired NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak, who calls himself “Mr. Eclipse” and says the February snow moon is a supermoon. Not only that, Espenak says it’s the first, and the smallest, of four consecutive supermoons, with the last one in May.

Hold on, says Richard Nolle, the Tempe, Arizona, astrologer who coined the word “supermoon” to describe a full moon at perigee. He says the February full moon isn’t a supermoon. Until Nolle “branded” the supermoon in 2011, astronomers called the full moon that coincided with perigee a “perigean full moon,” and it passed without notice.