When Is the Full Moon? The Exact Moment, How Long It Lasts and How to Tell Tonight

When Is the Full Moon at a Glance

Next full moon	Tuesday, November 24, 2026
Exact moment	9:53 AM Eastern, 8:53 AM Central, 7:53 AM Mountain, 6:53 AM Pacific (14:53 UTC)
Name and sign	Beaver Moon, about 2° Gemini, with the Sun in Sagittarius
Looks full	The evenings of November 23, 24 and 25
In New York	The Moon sets at 7:05 AM, before the exact moment, and rises again at 4:16 PM
The one after	Cold Moon, Wednesday, December 23, 2026, 8:28 PM Eastern, in Cancer
How often	Every 29.53 days on average

When Is the Full Moon?

The next full moon is Tuesday, November 24, 2026 at 9:53 AM Eastern. The one after it is the Cold Moon on Wednesday, December 23 at 8:28 PM Eastern. After that the Wolf Moon arrives on January 22, 2027. Notice the dates sliding backward: 24, then 23, then 22.

That slide is the whole rhythm. A full cycle, new moon to new moon, averages 29.53 days, which is shorter than any month except February. So each full moon usually lands about a day earlier on the calendar than the last, except across February. Twelve cycles add up to 354.4 days, 11 days short of a year, which is why next November’s full moon falls on the 13th instead of the 24th.

Here are the next nine, with the Eastern date and time and the sign the Moon is in. Our full moon calendar runs through the end of 2027 with Pacific times, supermoons and eclipses.

Full moon	Eastern	Moon’s sign
Beaver Moon	Tue, Nov 24, 2026, 9:53 AM	Gemini
Cold Moon	Wed, Dec 23, 2026, 8:28 PM	Cancer
Wolf Moon	Fri, Jan 22, 2027, 7:17 AM	Leo
Snow Moon	Sat, Feb 20, 2027, 6:23 PM	Virgo
Worm Moon	Mon, Mar 22, 2027, 6:44 AM	Libra
Pink Moon	Tue, Apr 20, 2027, 6:27 PM	Scorpio
Flower Moon	Thu, May 20, 2027, 6:59 AM	Scorpio
Strawberry Moon	Fri, Jun 18, 2027, 8:44 PM	Sagittarius
Buck Moon	Sun, Jul 18, 2027, 11:45 AM	Capricorn

The names are the ones the Old Farmer’s Almanac uses, drawn from Native American, Colonial American and other traditional North American sources.

The Full Moon Is a Moment, Not a Night

A full moon happens when the Moon is exactly opposite the Sun as seen from Earth, 180 degrees away along the Sun’s path. At that instant the whole sunlit face points at us. The US Naval Observatory computes that instant and publishes it to the minute, in UTC, and it is the same minute for everyone on the planet.

Everything else is the approach and the fade. How lit the Moon looks follows one formula: the lit fraction equals one plus the cosine of the angle from exact opposition, divided by two. At zero degrees from opposition that gives 100 percent. A day either side it has barely moved, which is why your eyes can’t tell the difference and the calendar can.

One small wrinkle. The Moon’s path is tilted against the Sun’s, so at most full moons the Moon passes a little above or below the point exactly opposite the Sun. On November 24 it sits about 5 degrees above, so even at 9:53 AM it is about 99.8 percent lit. The full moons that come closest to 100 percent are the ones where the Moon sits almost exactly opposite the Sun, which is also when it passes through Earth’s shadow: lunar eclipses.

Why the Full Moon Can Fall in Daytime

Look at the November date again: 9:53 AM Eastern. In New York the Moon set at 7:05 AM that morning, 2 hours and 48 minutes before it turned full. The exact moment happens with the Moon below the horizon and the Sun well up. It doesn’t rise again until 4:16 PM, 16 minutes before the 4:32 PM sunset.

That isn’t a quirk of this month. The exact instant is the same worldwide, and at any instant half the planet is in daylight. When it is 9:53 AM in New York it is 11:53 PM in Tokyo, and there the Moon is high in a dark sky at the exact moment. Somebody always gets the daytime full moon.

Here is the part that trips people up. You will never see a 100 percent full moon in a blue sky. A full moon rises around sunset and sets around sunrise, because it is opposite the Sun: when one is up, the other is down. The Farmers’ Almanac puts it simply: the new moon and the full moon are the only two phases that don’t appear in daylight. The big bright Moon you notice in a daytime sky is a day or two away from full, a waxing gibbous low in the east in the late afternoon, or a waning gibbous hanging in the west after sunrise.

How Long Does the Full Moon Last?

Strictly, one minute. To the eye, about three nights. Here is the working, so you can judge any night for yourself.

The Moon gains on the Sun by 360 degrees every 29.53 days, which is 12.19 degrees a day, or 0.508 degrees an hour. Put that into the formula above and you get the Moon’s percent lit at each distance from the exact minute.

Hours from exact	Angle from opposition	Percent lit
6	3.0°	99.9%
12	6.1°	99.7%
24	12.2°	98.9%
36	18.3°	97.5%
48	24.4°	95.5%
72	36.6°	90.2%

The Moon’s speed varies through the month, so real figures move by a point or two near the far end of the table. The US Naval Observatory’s own summary matches the table: the Moon may appear 100 percent lit only on the night closest to the exact moment, reads 97 to 99 percent on the night before and the night after, and even two days out is still 93 to 97 percent lit. As the observatory notes, most people would not notice the difference on the nights either side.

So, is it still considered a full moon right now? If you are within a day of the exact minute, yes, in every way that matters to your eyes. Our rule of thumb: the night closest to the exact minute, plus the night before and the night after, count as full. Beyond that, call it gibbous, and enjoy it anyway. The name is the only thing that changes.

For November 2026 the observatory lists the Moon as 99 percent lit on the 23rd and 100 percent on the 24th, which is why the evenings of the 23rd, 24th and 25th all deliver.

Why the Date Changes With Your Time Zone

The exact instant is one minute worldwide, but the calendar date that minute belongs to depends on where you stand. The Cold Moon is the clearest example. It turns full at 01:28 UTC on December 24, 2026. Take off five hours for Eastern standard time and that is 8:28 PM on December 23. In Pacific time it is 5:28 PM on the 23rd. In Paris, one hour ahead of UTC, it is 2:28 AM on the 24th.

So a site set to UTC or to Europe says December 24, a US site says December 23, and both are right. The same thing happens with the June 2027 full moon: 00:44 UTC on June 19 is 8:44 PM Eastern on June 18. When two calendars disagree by a day, check which time zone each one uses before you decide one is wrong.

To convert a UTC time yourself, subtract 5 hours for Eastern, 6 for Central, 7 for Mountain and 8 for Pacific during standard time. Subtract one hour less during daylight time, which by the US rule runs from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. In 2026 that ended on November 1. In 2027 it runs from March 14 to November 7, so the March through July full moons in the table above are already in daylight time.

Why Astrologers Care About the Exact Minute

Astronomy gives you three nights. Astrology needs the minute, because the minute decides the degree, and sometimes the sign.

The rule is simple geometry. The full moon is always in the sign opposite the Sun’s sign, at the same degree. A Sun at 2° Sagittarius means a full moon at 2° Gemini, which is exactly where November 24 lands. The Moon covers about 0.55 degrees an hour, so a sign of 30 degrees takes it a little over two days. Most full moons sit comfortably inside a sign. A few do not, and a difference of an hour or two moves them across a boundary.

Here is how close each of the next nine comes to a sign change, worked from the Sun’s and Moon’s positions at the exact instant.

Full moon	Moon’s degree	Hours from a sign change
Nov 24, 2026	about 2° Gemini	about 4 hours after entering Gemini
Dec 23, 2026	about 2° Cancer	about 3 and a half hours after entering Cancer
Jan 22, 2027	about 2° Leo	about 3 and a half hours after entering Leo
Feb 20, 2027	about 2° Virgo	about 3 and a half hours after entering Virgo
Mar 22, 2027	about 2° Libra	about 3 hours after entering Libra
Apr 20, 2027	under 1° Scorpio	about 1 hour after entering Scorpio
May 20, 2027	about 29° Scorpio	about an hour and a half before leaving Scorpio
Jun 18, 2027	about 28° Sagittarius	about 5 hours before leaving Sagittarius
Jul 18, 2027	about 26° Capricorn	about 8 and a half hours before leaving Capricorn

The April and May pair is the one to watch. On April 20, 2027 the Moon crosses into Scorpio at 21:21 UTC and turns full at 22:27 UTC, 1 hour and 6 minutes later. If that full moon had come an hour and a quarter earlier, it would have been a Libra full moon. On May 20 the Moon turns full at 10:59 UTC and leaves Scorpio at 12:27 UTC, 1 hour and 28 minutes later. Two full moons in Scorpio in a row, both decided by about an hour, because the Sun entered Taurus roughly 15 hours before the first and leaves for Gemini roughly 19 hours after the second. That is why we quote the minute and not the night.

The degree is what makes it personal. Pull your free birth chart for your rising sign, then use our guide to reading a birth chart to see which house that degree falls in. A full moon in your tenth house is about work and reputation; the same full moon in your fourth is about home.

How to Tell If the Moon Is Full Tonight

Three checks, no app required.

1. It rises as the Sun sets. A full moon comes up in the east around sunset and stays up all night. If the Moon is already high when the Sun goes down, it is a day or more before full. If it rises well after dark, it is past full.
2. Both edges look round. The night before full, the left edge is a touch flat when seen from the northern hemisphere. The night after, the right edge is. On the night of the exact moment both sides curve.
3. The number is 97 or higher. Our moon phases today guide explains how lit each phase looks. For tonight’s number, the live block just below this list works. Above 97 percent, it is full to the eye.

For a date that has already passed, when was the last full moon holds the past year of dates, times and signs.

What Does “Full Moon Phase” Mean?

The full moon phase is the peak of the Moon’s cycle, the point where the Sun and Moon sit on opposite sides of Earth and the Moon’s whole sunlit face is turned toward us. NASA lists it as one of eight phases that always arrive in the same order: new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, third quarter, waning crescent, and back to new.

It arrives about 14.8 days after the new moon, halfway through the 29.53 day cycle. In everyday use, “full moon phase” means the day or so around the exact instant when the Moon looks round. Our guide to the phases of the Moon covers all eight and what each tends to be good for.

What to Do When the Moon Is Full

In the astrological tradition the full moon is a culmination: what was started at the new moon becomes visible, and whatever has peaked can be released. Three pointers, tendencies not rules.

1. Finish something. Choose one thing you began two weeks ago and bring it to a visible end, even a small one.
2. Say the thing. Full moons are an opposition between the Sun and the Moon, and oppositions in astrology are about two sides meeting. Have the conversation you have been circling.
3. Let one thing go. Write down what you are done carrying. The release is the point.

Our full moon rituals guide has five simple practices that work under any full moon.

When Is the Full Moon FAQ