Get Ready For A Full Blue Moon! The Facts!

James Kaufman will news report today. Get ready for a full blue moon. The facts. Get ready for some rare blue moonlight. On Sunday, May 31st, sky watchers will witness a blue moon rising over the eastern horizon. Just step outside around sunset and spin around to face east and there it will be. The moon can actually appear blue, but don't expect any color change tomorrow. This is a calendar blue moon. The second full moon within a single calendar month. May 2026 opened with a full moon at the start of the month and now closes with another full moon. The phenomena happens every two or three years and does not alter the moon's natural colors. Low-hanging blue moons are typically orange, not blue, while overhead blue moons are the gray shades of moon rock. Yes, blue moons are real and can actually appear blue under the proper circumstances. Although rare, true blue moons require unusual atmospheric conditions caused by forest fires and volcanoes. When the air is loaded with smoky particles slightly wider than the wavelength of red light about one micron across, those particles preferentially scatter red wavelengths while letting blue light pass through. The result, a completely blue moon. For a moon that appears genuinely blue, upon the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, observers reported blue moons for nearly two years. The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens produced them as well, as did the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Smoke from wildfires in western Canada in September of 1950 turned moons blue across all of North America and Europe for weeks. Tomorrow, step outside and look up. The moon will be full, bright, and barring a volcanic calamity or large forest fire, stubbornly, the moon will be silver in color, not blue. But blue moonlight is expected anyway. Again, this should and can be viewed just after sunset, so many people should be able to enjoy this. That said, please give us a thumbs up, please share, and remember that anything's possible in Bizarro World.