Keep your eye on the sky Wednesday night as there will be a rare blue supermoon.
The peak will appear at 9:36 p.m. and the moon will be full for three days. It also will be brighter than usual, so it will be hard to miss.
What is a blue supermoon and why is it considered to be rare?
A blue moon is when there are two full moons within a calendar month, according to NASA. There’s more than one full moon a month every two to three years. It is because the moon cycle is just a little bit shorter than the length of a month. To make it more clear, there is usually a good chance of a blue moon when there is a full moon at the beginning of a month.
Now a supermoon occurs when the moon is at its perigee. This is when the moon is at its closest point to the Earth. In this case, the moon on Wednesday and Thursday is 222,043 miles from Earth and will appear larger to the naked eye than normal. The typical distance from Earth to the moon is 238,900 miles. Supermoons happen about three to four times a year.
When you combine these, it is referred to as a blue supermoon. These happen every 10 to 20 years, according to NASA. The next blue supermoons will be in January and March of 2037, as a pair.
You may be wondering if the moon will appear blue.
Probably not. It happens on very rare occasions due to smoke or tiny particles in the atmosphere. These tiny particles can scatter away the red wavelengths causing the moon to appear blue.
The high tide is scheduled for 11:15 p.m. Wednesday, which will coincide with the blue supermoon.
The reason for bringing this up is that there will be astronomical high tides. With Hurricane Franklin offshore, there is a high risk of coastal flooding as well as a large surf on Maine’s coast beginning Wednesday night into Thursday.