What time is the full moon tonight? When the February 2022 full ‘snow moon’ peaks and if you can s

The February full moon arrives on Wednesday evening, but the arrival of Storm Dudley means people in the UK might not get much of a chance to see it.

Shrouded in folklore and mystique for millennia, the full moon has inspired everything from religious festivals to horror films and outlandish doomsday conspiracy theories.

It has also led to moon names infiltrating pop culture, with this month’s full moon dubbed the “snow moon” – here’s when it’s arriving tonight, and everything else you need to know.

What time is the full moon tonight?

The February full moon will reach its peak at 4.56pm on Wednesday, according to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

Although we tend to think of there being a full moon each month, the lunar cycle actually lasts just over 29.5 days, which means there is sometimes more than one (commonly known as a “blue moon”).

This also means that the full moon generally falls slightly earlier each month, with the full lunar timetable for 2022 as follows:

• 17 January
• 16 February
• 18 March
• 16 April
• 16 May
• 14 June
• 13 July
• 12 August
• 10 September
• 9 October
• 8 November
• 8 December

Will you be able to see it in the UK?

Given the time that the full moon peaks, the best chance to see it will come in early evening in the UK.

However, with the sun setting after 5.15pm for the vast majority of the nation, most people will miss out on the chance to see it at it’s fullest in darkness.

Conditions are also highly likely to hamper any opportunity to get a decent sighting of the orb, with rain forecast for almost the entire country throughout the early evening.

Indeed, the arrival of Storm Dudley, which will be followed by Storm Eunice later in the week, has prompted the Met Office to issue a series of weather warnings for much of the nation on Wednesday.

Dudley is set to strike Northern Ireland, much of Scotland, Wales, northern England and parts of the Midlands, with winds expected to start getting stronger from around 4pm and continue into the night.

Why is the February full moon called the ‘snow moon’?

February’s full moon has come to be known as the “Snow Moon” in some quarters, as per the American Farmer’s Almanac, which has apparently been designated the gold standard for such matters.

The publication acknowledges that, of the reasons behind the moon’s various monikers, this “is a fairly straightforward one”.

It explains: “It’s known as the Snow Moon due to the typically heavy snowfall that occurs in February. On average, February is the United States’ snowiest month, according to data from the National Weather Service.”

These moon names, and their purported meanings, have gained increased traction in recent years, with the labels generally attributed to Native American tribes:

• January: Wolf Moon
• February: Snow Moon
• March: Worm Moon
• April: Pink Moon
• May: Flower Moon
• June: Strawberry Moon
• July: Buck Moon
• August: Sturgeon Moon
• September: Harvest Moon
• October: Hunter’s Moon
• November: Beaver Moon
• December: Cold Moon

They appear to have become more popular after the 2014 lunar eclipse – a phenomenon colloquially referred to a “blood moon,” due to it causing the moon to have a reddish hue – ignited interest in such romanticised names.

There is no standardised Native American calendar, according to Laura Redish, director and cofounder of Native Languages of the Americas, although Nasa says the names derive from the Algonquin tribe, part of a larger cultural linguistic group called Algonquian.

Some of the popularly used names, such as the “strawberry moon” and “harvest moon”, do seem to be Algonquin, according to a list published by Algonquin Nation Tribal Council in 2005.

Others, such as the “wolf moon,” aren’t – the tribe apparently referred to January as “long moon month”.