Take a look in the sky over Beaufort tonight and you’ll see a supermoon over the Lowcountry for the last time in 2019.
Tonight’s full moon is called the Worm Moon, and will be it’s fullest tonight at 9:43pm and it coincides with the spring equinox at 5:58 that heralds the start of a new season.
This supermoon will be the final of this year’s three back-to-back supermoons. The first was on Jan. 21, and the second — the biggest and brightest supermoon of 2019 — was on Feb. 19.
For observers in Beaufort, the moon will rise about 20 minutes before sunset by 7pm local time, and moonset is the next morning around 7:30 a.m., according to the U.S. Naval Observatory.
A supermoon is a full moon that has reached the closest point to Earth in its monthly elliptical orbit around the planet. As such, supermoons appear larger and brighter in the night sky, though these changes are typically far too subtle to detect.
The equinox will arrive at 5:58 p.m. ET on Wednesday, less than four hours before the full supermoon. In the Northern Hemisphere, the equinox is the official start of spring, but in the Southern Hemisphere, it marks the beginning of autumn.
March’s full moon is called the “worm moon,” because according to folklore tradition, it occurs at a time when the frosty ground is melting and earthworms start to emerge.
Make sure you don’t miss it!
