Full Moon December 2028: Cold Moon
The December full moon, when winter cold takes hold and nights are longest. Times convert to your time zone (showing UTC).
Peak fullness (showing UTC)
- Name
- Cold Moon
- Distance
- 389,145 km
- Type
- Average
About the Cold Moon
The December full moon, when winter cold takes hold and nights are longest.
The Long Night Moon, for the night nearest the winter solstice, and the Moon before Yule are older names. It is the highest-riding full moon of the year in the northern hemisphere, opposite the low December sun.
With the moon up for around 15 hours at mid-northern latitudes, this is the best full moon for all-night moonlight.
Lore
December's moon comes with the deepest cold and the longest nights, hence the Cold Moon and Long Night Moon. In Anglo-Saxon tradition it was the Moon before Yule, and its light on snow made the long nights unusually bright.
Trivia
- The Cold Moon rides highest of all full moons in the northern hemisphere, opposite the low solstice Sun.
- Around the December solstice the full moon is above the horizon for more than 15 hours at 50 degrees north.
- The Cold Moon is usually the last full moon of the year, but some years a thirteenth follows it as a Blue Moon.
Second full moon of the month (showing UTC)
- Name
- Blue Moon (Cold Moon)
- Distance
- 377,600 km
- Type
- Average
About the Blue Moon
A second full moon in one calendar month. It happens about every two and a half years and has nothing to do with color.
The monthly definition became popular after a 1946 Sky and Telescope article misread the Maine Farmers' Almanac, which used an older seasonal rule: the third full moon in a season that has four. Both definitions are in use today. The phrase "once in a blue moon" predates both and simply means rarely.
Because the calendar month decides it, a Blue Moon in one time zone can be an ordinary full moon in another when the full moon falls within hours of midnight on the first or last day of the month.
Lore
The phrase once in a blue moon is older than any astronomical definition and originally meant something absurd or never. The modern rule, a second full moon in one calendar month, spread from a 1946 magazine article and a 1980s radio programme. Genuinely blue-looking moons have been seen after huge volcanic eruptions and forest fires, when smoke particles scatter red light.
Trivia
- Monthly Blue Moons happen about every 2.7 years.
- The older seasonal rule calls the third full moon of a season with four the Blue Moon.
- After Krakatoa erupted in 1883 the Moon appeared blue or green for nearly two years.
All moon phases in December 2028
| Phase | Date and time (UTC) |
|---|---|
| Full Moon | |
| Last Quarter | |
| New Moon | |
| First Quarter | |
| Full Moon |
See the whole month day by day on the moon phases calendar for your city.