Blue Moon

A blue moon is a full moon that is not timed to the regular monthly pattern.
Most years have twelve full moons which occur approximately monthly, but in addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each solar calendar year contains an excess of roughly eleven days compared to the lunar year.

The extra days accumulate, so that every two or three years (on average about every 2.7154 years), there is an extra full moon. The extra moon is called a "blue moon."


Two full moons in one month:

* 2009: December 2, December 31 (Blue Moon on New Year's Eve)
* 2012: August 2, August 31
* 2015: July 2, July 31


Nothing outrageous - but hey 2012 is the next appearance.....

I was telling my wife and kids about this earlier. The kids were excited to go for a moonlight walk on New Years eve. It is supposed to snow however so likely we won't see it 🙁

2012 may be the next blue moon, but isn't the world supposed to end in 2012? Before or after the blue moon??
😉

I don't know. Is the end of the world on 12/12/12? That'd be after the blue moon 😄

It's an artifact of our trying to impose a rigid time span on everything, even things that we don't set our calendar by and that will take as long as they damn well please. 🙂 The moon doesn't go by our calendar, and we didn't set our calendar by the moon, so this is an obvious eventuality. Interesting to learn the origin of the phrase, and any excuse to talk about astronomy is a good one.

I'll add a twist to that.

My wife swears that things are a lot crazier in the ER during full moons. Add to that it's a blue moon and new years eve. Let's just say, she's not looking forward to working tomorrow night.

Had an old GF that worked with the severely disabled, Sun spots was a time when some of the kids would actually become coherent and family and staff could talk to them.
Sister worked for a dentist and he refused to operate on full moon days and day before and after.

My sinus surgeon rescheduled my 4th surgery due to a full moon.

There is a lot to it.

Atomm wrote:My wife swears that things are a lot crazier in the ER during full moons. Add to that it's a blue moon and new years eve. Let's just say, she's not looking forward to working tomorrow night.

Firemen and Policement will second that. Ask any of your buddies who wear either uniform. You can even catch it in Cops when a guy will casually mention it's a full moon that night.

Many species of animals on our planet schedule major events such as mating and hunting based on the lunar cycle. Humans must be affected by it in some way that we don't yet understand.

They say the moon's gravitation pull regulates the Earth's weather systems, otherwise it would be completely chaotic like the other plantes in our system.

Personally, I just think it's kind of cool when it's 2 AM and it's really light out, enough to cast a sharp shadow. During the winter the sky is so clear you get really beautiful moon shadows.

Duck wrote:Had an old GF that

Yeah I had one who let moon cycles affect her too much too 😱

mmmm.. beer.