Full Moon Calendar 2027

There are 12 full moons in 2027, one in every calendar month. The first is the Wolf Moon on Friday, January 22, at 7:17 a.m. Eastern Time (12:17 GMT), and the last is the Cold Moon on Monday, December 13. The May full moon is a seasonal Blue Moon, and two others come with faint penumbral lunar eclipses.

Full moon dates and times for 2027

The table gives the exact moment of each full moon in US Eastern Time and in UK time. The times come from the U.S. Naval Observatory and match the phase tables published by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to within a minute. The names are the ones popularized by The Old Farmer's Almanac.

EST and GMT apply in winter, EDT and BST in summer. In 2027 the US is on daylight time from March 14 to November 7, and the UK is on British Summer Time from March 28 to October 31. For Central Time subtract one hour from the Eastern time, for Mountain Time two hours and for Pacific Time three.

Why is the date different in some places?

A full moon is a single instant: the moment the Moon is exactly opposite the Sun as seen from Earth. Everyone on the planet shares that instant, but local clocks read differently, and near midnight the calendar date changes too.

Three full moons of 2027 show this clearly. The June full moon falls on the evening of June 18 in the eastern US but in the early hours of June 19 in Britain. The same happens on September 15 and 16 and on November 13 and 14. Farther east, in Asia and Australia, more dates move forward by a day. If a calendar disagrees with the table above by one day, check which time zone it was made for.

What time should you look?

You do not need to catch the exact minute. According to NASA, a full moon rises around sunset and sets around sunrise, so it is up all night. When the exact moment comes in the morning or the middle of the day, as it does on January 22, the Moon is below the horizon or lost in daylight for viewers in the US. On those dates the Moon looks full to the eye both on the night before and on the night after.

Moonrise is the most striking time to watch. The Moon is low, it looks large beside trees and rooftops, and its color is warmer near the horizon.

What are the full moons of 2027 called?

The names in the table (Wolf Moon, Snow Moon, Worm Moon and so on) are the set that The Old Farmer's Almanac has printed for decades. It describes them as coming from Native American, Colonial American and other traditional North American sources. They are popular labels, not astronomical terms, and different peoples used different names. Where each one comes from is covered on our page of full moon names.

Two of the names follow a rule and not a month. The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the September equinox, which in 2027 falls on September 23. The full moon of September 15 is eight days away from it and the October one is 22 days away, so September's moon is the Harvest Moon. The Hunter's Moon is the one that follows, on October 15.

The February full moon also marks a holiday. February 20, 2027 is the 15th day of the first lunar month, the night of the Lantern Festival that closes the Chinese New Year season.

Is there a Blue Moon in 2027?

There is one, but only by the older of the two definitions.

• Monthly Blue Moon: the second full moon in one calendar month. 2027 has none, because every month has exactly one full moon.
• Seasonal Blue Moon: the third full moon in a season that has four. Spring 2027 qualifies. Between the March equinox on March 20 and the June solstice on June 21 there are four full moons: March 22, April 20, May 20 and June 18 (June 19 in the UK). The third, on May 20, 2027, is a seasonal Blue Moon.

The Moon does not turn blue on that night. The name describes the count and not the color.

Which full moons of 2027 come with an eclipse?

A lunar eclipse can only happen at full moon, when Earth sits between the Sun and the Moon. In 2027 no full moon passes through the dark central part of Earth's shadow, so there is no total or partial lunar eclipse and no "blood moon" this year. NASA's eclipse catalog lists three penumbral eclipses, in which the Moon only crosses the pale outer shadow:

• February 20, 2027. Greatest eclipse at about 6:13 p.m. EST (23:13 GMT). Visible from the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. This is the deepest of the three, and it shows as a soft gray shading on one edge of the Moon at most.
• July 18, 2027. The Moon barely grazes the outer shadow. The effect cannot be seen by eye, and it happens during daylight in the US and the UK.
• August 17, 2027. Greatest eclipse at about 3:14 a.m. EDT (08:14 BST). NASA lists it as visible from the Pacific and the Americas, which leaves out the UK.

Lunar eclipses are safe to watch with the naked eye. Details of all of this year's eclipses, including the total solar eclipse of August 2, are on our eclipses of 2027 page.

How often is there a full moon?

The Moon's phases repeat every 29.5 days. That is the time it takes the Moon to return to the same position relative to the Sun and Earth. Twelve of those cycles add up to about 354 days, 11 days short of a calendar year. Most years therefore have 12 full moons, and roughly every third year has 13. In 2027 the count is 12.

The other three main phases, with times for every month, are in our moon phases 2027 calendar, and the dark nights of the year are listed under new moons of 2027.