What Is a Blue Moon?

A Blue Moon is a fairly infrequent phenomenon involving the appearance of an additional full moon within a given time period. But which time period — there are two definitions of the term, and one was borne out of a misunderstanding of the other.

The older meaning defines a Blue Moon as the third full moon in a season that has four full moons. This kind of Blue Moon occurs about every 2.7 years. Why the third moon? Seasons normally have three full moons, and some of them, for traditional and religious reasons, must occur at specific times of the year. So, the “Moon Before Yule” is always the one before Christmas.

The other meaning is that a Blue Moon is the second full moon within a single calendar month. This definition has gained popularity in recent years because of a misinterpretation of an almanac’s original definition.
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Which one is correct? Well, since language and the meaning of words constantly evolve — take your pick. Both are commonly used today.

By the newer definition, there is a Blue Moon on Saturday, May 21, 2016. The online Slooh Community Observatory will offer a free live webcast of the May full moon beginning at 8 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT). You can follow the Slooh webcast at Slooh.com. You can also watch the Blue Moon webcast on Space.com here, courtesy of Slooh.

By the way, Blue Moons are not typically blue in color — that happens only, well, once in a blue moon, but there is the possibility for a hint of blue in any full moon (more on this below).  
Origin of the term

The phrase “once in a blue moon” has been around for more than 400 years, according to Philip Hiscock, a folklorist at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. In a 2012 article in Sky & Telescope magazine, he explained that the earliest use of term was much like saying the moon is made of green cheese — it indicated something absurd. “He would argue that the moon is blue” was similar to saying, “He would argue that black is white.”

The meaning evolved to something akin to “never,” according to Hiscock. “I’ll marry you when the moon turns blue” became the equivalent of “I’ll marry you when pigs fly.”

But, never say never. It turns out that the moon can appear bluish, as it did in 1883 after the volcano Krakatoa erupted. Dust in the air acted as a filter, causing sunsets and the moon to turn green and blue all over the world. Other events such as forest fires and dust storms can cause the moon to turn blue.

So, the meaning of “once in a blue moon” changed from “never” to “rarely,” according to Hiscock.

When does a Blue Moon occur?

Now we get to the contradictory definitions of “Blue Moon.”

The calendrical meaning for the term “Blue Moon” has been traced back to the now-defunct Maine Farmer’s Almanac as far back as the mid-1800s. On the page for August 1937, the almanac explained that the moon “usually comes full 12 times in a year, three times for each season. Occasionally, however, there will come a year when there are 13 full moons during a year, not the usual 12. And that extra full moon also meant that one of the four seasons would contain four full moons instead of the usual three.”

The almanac followed certain rules for what to call each moon. For example, the last full moon of winter had to fall during Lent; it was called the Lenten Moon. The first full moon of spring was called the Egg Moon — or Easter Moon, or Paschal Moon — and had to fall within the week before Easter. There was also the Moon Before Yule and the Moon After Yule.

So when a particular season had four moons, the third was dubbed a “Blue Moon,” so that the other full moons could occur at the proper times relative to the solstices and equinoxes.

 
Second definition

But what about the definition that many people have heard — that a Blue Moon is the second full month in a single month? That came from a misinterpretation of the original definition.

In the Sky & Telescope article, Hiscock helped figure out where this meaning came from. He explained that in a question-and-answer column from the July 1943 issue of Sky & Telescope, writer Lawrence J. Lafleur referenced the Maine Farmer’s Almanac definition. LaFleur correctly quoted the almanac’s account, but he made one important omission: He never specified any dates for the Blue Moon.

In 1946, James Hugh Pruett, an amateur astronomer, was writing in Sky & Telescope magazine and repeated some of LaFleur’s comments. Pruett made an incorrect assumption about how the term had been used in the almanac, according to Hiscock. Pruett wrote, “Seven times in 19 years there were — and still are — 13 full moons in a year. This gives 11 months with one full moon each and one with two. This second in a month, so I interpret it, was called Blue Moon.” Hiscock explained that Pruett must not have had the 1937 almanac handy, or he would have noticed that the Blue Moon fell on August 21st (obviously not the second full moon that month) and that 1937 had only 12 full moons.

Sky & Telescope adopted Pruett’s new definition, and the column was used as a source for a nationally syndicated radio program in 1980, which, according to Hiscock, is when this definition gained widespread use.

Today, either definition of “Blue Moon” is considered valid. As Texas astronomer Donald W. Olson wrote in a 2006 column for the magazine, “With two decades of popular usage behind it, the second-full-moon-in-a-month (mis)interpretation is like a genie that can’t be forced back into its bottle. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”