October 2025 Full Harvest Moon

On Monday, October 6, 2025, we will be treated to a full Harvest Moon.  The Moon will look full and round when it rises at 6:38PM EDT.  However, it won’t be an official full Moon until 11:47PM – the exact moment the Sun and Moon are on opposite sides of the Earth.  Wait, isn’t October’s full Moon the Hunter’s Moon?  Usually, but about every three years it’s the Harvest Moon.  The name Harvest Moon isn’t tied to a particular month, instead it’s defined as the full Moon closest to the autumnal equinox, so the full Harvest Moon can be either the September full Moon or the October full Moon.  This year’s October full Moon is one day closer to the September 22 autumnal equinox date than the September full Moon.  When this happens the September full Moon becomes the Corn Moon and October’s full Moon becomes the Harvest Moon.  When a full moon occurs close to the autumnal equinox its orbital path is making a shallow angle with the horizon causing the Moon to rise relatively soon after sunset for a few days in a row.  This means that the Moon will look full and bright all night long from October 5th to 7th.

October’s full Moon is also a supermoon. “Supermoon” is a trendy internet term for what astronomers call a perigean full Moon which is when the full Moon happens at, or very near, the exact time the Moon is closest to Earth during its orbit.  The Moon reaches perigee at 8:27AM EDT the morning of October 8.  And although a supermoon can be a bit larger and brighter these differences are so small the eye can’t see them.  Like all full Moons, they appear larger on the horizon because of the Moon illusion.  This is the first of three consecutive supermoons this year.

The name Harvest Moon seems to have originated in Europe.  Just when the days were growing shorter the full Harvest Moon arrived and for several days the moonlight let the farmers have a few more hours to harvest their crops.  Early Native Americans didn’t change the name of the September or October full Moons based on their closeness to the autumnal equinox.  The name most often associated with this Moon is the Hunter’s Moon.  Using the light of this Moon, hunters could hunt late into the evening allowing them more time to prepare for winter.  However, Native Americans had many names for October’s full Moon based on the natural changes occurring this time of year and their preparations for the coming winter.  Some of these include the Travel Moon, perhaps because birds and other animals were migrating or perhaps because northern Native American tribes would move down from the mountains for the winter.  The Dakota peoples called it the Drying Rice Moon as this was the time to dry rice for storage, the Cree called this Moon the Migrating Moon as birds were migrating south, the Anishinaabe called it the Falling Leaves Moon, and the Ojibwe called it the Freezing Moon as temperatures become increasingly cold.

For us this extra moonlight gives us more time to enjoy this awesome Moon!