Wolf Moon: January's full moon

Where the name Wolf Moon comes from

Most US almanacs and news outlets call January’s full moon the Wolf Moon. The Old Farmer’s Almanac, based in New Hampshire, explains it by wolves being heard howling more often in the depths of winter. The Farmers’ Almanac, a separate publication based in Maine, describes it the same way: long, cold midwinter nights when wolves could be heard.

The name is often presented as a “Native American moon name,” but the Old Farmer’s Almanac itself says otherwise. It describes the Wolf Moon as probably English in origin, a name that European settlers brought with them to North America. That makes January a useful reminder that the familiar list of twelve monthly names is a mix of traditions, collected and standardized by almanacs. It is not one Indigenous calendar.

Indigenous nations had, and have, their own names. Those names varied from nation to nation and often from band to band. Many applied to a whole lunar month, which runs from one new moon (or full moon) to the next, rather than to the single night of the full moon. The full moon names overview explains how the popular list came together.

Other names for January’s full moon

The Old Farmer’s Almanac lists these alternatives and attributes each one to a specific nation. The attributions are the almanac’s, and we have not confirmed them with the nations themselves.

• Spirit Moon: Ojibwe.
• Center Moon: Assiniboine.
• Cold Moon, Frost Exploding Moon and Great Moon: Cree.
• Severe Moon and Hard Moon: Dakota.
• Freeze Up Moon: Algonquin, as the almanac uses the term.
• Canada Goose Moon: Tlingit.
• Greetings Moon: Western Abenaki.

Indian Country Today (ICT), a Native-run news outlet, gives an Ojibwe name in Ojibwemowin, Gichi-manidoo-giizis, which it translates as Great Spirit Moon. ICT also notes that Ojibwe moon names differ between dialects. The same word can be tied to a different month in different communities.

The same ICT article gives month names from other nations, each from a named community source. Its Dakota list, from a University of Minnesota language page, calls January Wítheȟi wí, the Hard Moon, which matches the almanac’s Dakota entry. The Oneida list, from the Shako:wi Cultural Center in Oneida, New York, gives “Someone’s Ears Are Freezing.” The Cherokee list, from an 1890s calendar used at Cherokee seminaries, gives Windy Moon.

Several of these names also turn up in other months. “Cold Moon” is best known as December’s popular name. That overlap is normal: the names describe the season, and the seasons do not line up neatly with Gregorian months.

What makes the Wolf Moon notable

January’s full moon is one of the highest full moons of the year for viewers in the United States. A full moon always sits on the opposite side of Earth from the Sun. In midwinter the Sun’s daily path is low and short, so the full moon takes the opposite path: high and long. It rises in the northeast around sunset, climbs high in the south around midnight, and sets in the northwest near sunrise.

The result is a long night of bright moonlight, and snow on the ground makes it brighter still. That is good for a moonlit winter walk, but bad for faint objects. Around the Wolf Moon, the Milky Way and most deep-sky objects are lost. A bright moon also hurts early January’s Quadrantid meteor shower in years when the two coincide.

How to watch the Wolf Moon

The best show is moonrise. Check the moonrise time for your city in the table above, then find a spot with a clear view of the eastern horizon. A full moon rises close to sunset, so it comes up in a sky that is still blue or deep twilight.

To the eye, the Moon looks full for a night or so on either side of the exact instant of full moon. The evening listed above for each city is the night that contains the exact full moon in that city’s time zone.

Near the horizon the Moon will look huge. This is the Moon illusion. NASA notes that photographs show the Moon is the same width low in the sky as it is overhead. Your brain judges it as bigger, possibly because of the trees and buildings around it. Hold out your arm and cover the Moon with your index fingernail: it fits just as well at moonrise as it does at midnight.

Low on the horizon the Moon also looks yellow or orange. Its light passes through more air there, and the air scatters away more of the blue. Dress for the cold, and give your eyes a few minutes to adjust. Binoculars show the Moon’s dark lava plains (the maria) clearly, even on a full moon.