A striking orange-red full moon known as the snow moon will peak out from below the horizon this week.
The second full moon of the winter, the snow moon will rise to illuminate evening skies for three nights after January’s wolf moon kicked off 2025.
Here’s everything to know about how to see the snow moon, and how it got its appropriate winter nickname.
In Graphics:Look for February’s full ‘snow moon’ before Valentine’s Day
How did the snow moon get its name?
Full moon names were an integral ancient method to track the changing months and seasons, and many that are still used today came from Colonial Americans adopting Native American names into their calendars.
Unsurprisingly, the name of February’s full moon became known as the snow moon since it rises in one of the snowiest months, on average, in the United States. Because bad weather and heavy snows made hunting difficult, the moon has also been called the hunger moon, according to NASA.
When will the snow moon be visible? How to see it
The snow moon reaches peak illumination at 8:53 a.m. EST on Wednesday, Feb. 12.
A full moon rises opposite the sunset in the east, is highest in the sky at midnight and lies low on the western horizon opposite the sunrise, according to EarthSky, a website dedicated to astronomical events. The snow moon will also look full on Tuesday and Thursday.
When is the next full moon?
The third and final full moon of the winter is the worm moon, which will be full at 2:56 a.m. EST on Friday, March 14, 2025 in the Northern Hemisphere.
Total ‘blood moon’ lunar eclipse coming in March
This year’s worm moon will coincide with a blood moon total lunar eclipse, which is coming March 13-14, according to NASA.
On those nights, the sun, Earth and moon will align so that the moon passes into the Earth’s shadow, causing the lunar surface to appear as a deep shade of rusty-red during the more than hourlong totality. The phenomenon will visible to the naked eye from Earth’s Western Hemisphere, but will be enhanced with telescopes and binoculars, NASA says.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com