The last lunar eclipse across North Georgia was all the way back on November 8, 2022. The next is just a couple days away!
When the Full Wind Moon rises on Thursday evening, it will be getting ready to move into the Earth’s shadow. The more common name for the March full moon is the “Worm Moon”, but our local Cherokee and Catawba tribes referred to it as the “Wind Moon”. This isn’t at all surprising as March is well known as being the windiest month of the year thanks to consistent cold fronts through the month.
According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the “Worm Moon” gets it name from an unusual place. As the soil warms in the spring sunlight, the first thing to emerge are worms and bug larvae.
This year’s Wind Moon will begin to fall into Earth’s shadow and eventually turn red during the wee morning hours of Friday morning. A total lunar eclipse occurs as the Earth moves between the sun and the moon, as you can see in the image below from NASA.
The reason for the red color is sunsets! The only light that reaches the moon during an eclipse has passed through Earth’s atmosphere, leaving only the red light behind. If you were to stand on the moon during an eclipse, you would see every sunset and sunrise on Earth happening simultaneously, a sight that hasn’t been seen just yet. This dull, red coppery color results in the name “Blood Moon”.
There are two parts to the Earth’s shadow: the penumbra and umbra. The penumbra is only a slight shadow where the entire sun isn’t blocked, while the umbra is the deep shadow with no sunlight. The moon will move into the penumbra at 11:59PM Thursday night, but it will be around 30-45 minutes before any difference will be visual.
The partial eclipse will begin at 1:09AM with totality starting at 2:26AM. This will be a fairly long eclipse clocking in at 1 hour and 5 minutes with totality ending at 3:31AM. The moon will move back into just the penumbra at 4:47AM.
A good view of the eclipse will be depending on the weather, which right now looks a little problematic. There will likely be some clouds in the region as a weak weather disturbance moves through. However, skies should be clearing after midnight and there are good signs that we will have at least partly cloudy skies during the eclipse. Luckily for us, the moon will be very high in the sky through maximum eclipse which will require a smaller cloud gap than one near the horizon.
Stay tuned for a more detailed weather forecast for the event!
