Halloween 2020 Will Have An Extremely Rare Full Moon

Halloween is one of the most popular holidays in the United States, and this year Halloween will be particularly special. Halloween 2020 will be the first since 1944 were nearly all the time zones in the world will experience a full moon. The last time a full moon happened on Halloween in the US was in 2001 for the Central and Pacific time zones.

This year, not everyone will see the full moon on Halloween, but everyone in the US and many other countries will. Locations that will miss out on the full moon on October 31 include Central Australia, Eastern Australia, New Zealand, Eastern Indonesia, New Guinea, Japan, Fiji, or Eastern Russia. Every time zone east of GMT +8 time zones will see the full moon if they have daylight time or GMT +9 with no daylight time.

Typically, most locations see the full moon on November 1, making it extremely rare for so many to see a full moon on Halloween. The last time a full moon happened for people all around the world on Halloween was in 1944.

Since the full moon will be so bright, anyone will see it, whether they're in a rural area or city surrounded by lights. After Halloween 2020, the next time there will be a global full moon on the spooky holiday will be 2039.

Full moons do occur in October between now and 2039, just not on Halloween, at least not globally. A few regions may have a full moon on Halloween before 2039. Making this year's full moon on Halloween even more interesting is that it's also a blue moon. A blue moon is so rare that it's where the phrase "once in a blue moon" comes from. For those unfamiliar, the definition of a blue moon is the second full moon to appear in a calendar month. The first full moon will occur on October 1.