Cold Moon
December's full moon is called the Cold Moon because its name points to the winter cold taking hold. The Old Farmer's Almanac lists it as a Mohawk name. Other recorded names draw attention to long nights, snow, and the sounds of trees in deep cold.
, 2026
· Dec 24, 01:28 UTC · Moon in Cancer
Where the name comes from
Winter cold is the explanation behind the Mohawk name Cold Moon listed by the Old Farmer's Almanac. The Farmers' Almanac also uses Cold Moon for December, while Royal Museums Greenwich connects the name with winter's arrival. In this familiar monthly naming scheme, the seasonal reference belongs to the Northern Hemisphere. These publications describe how the name is used today, but their accounts do not identify a single moment when the English wording was coined or first adopted.
The alternative Indigenous names listed here follow the Old Farmer's Almanac's attributions, which preserve distinctions among peoples rather than presenting one shared naming system. It lists Winter Maker Moon as Western Abenaki and Snow Moon as Haida and Cherokee, alongside names describing frost, trees, and the length of the night. Its broader account explains that Indigenous systems of seasonal timekeeping varied, including in how seasons and lunar months were counted. Timeanddate adds that names could refer to a whole lunar month, allowing seasonal labels to overlap the boundaries of calendar months. The modern December list is therefore best read as a collection of reported seasonal names, not as a direct transcription of one universal Indigenous calendar.
Other names for the December full moon
- Long Night Moon — Mohican
- Frost Exploding Trees Moon — Cree
- Moon of the Popping Trees — Oglala
- Snow Moon — Haida, Cherokee
- Winter Maker Moon — Western Abenaki
- Mid-Winter Moon — Lakota and Northern Ojibwe
What the season is doing
Across the northern United States, December brings the cold and long nights that give this group of names its setting. The Old Farmer's Almanac's alternatives direct attention toward snow, hoar frost, and trees described as popping or exploding in the cold, placing the emphasis on conditions in fields and woods rather than on the moon's appearance. Around farms and in the woods, these are names for noticing winter taking hold, not instructions tied to a particular night. Cold Moon and Winter Maker Moon suggest winter's arrival, while Mid-Winter Moon shows that the collected names do not all describe the season from exactly the same point of view.
What the name does not mean
The word cold does not mean that this full moon has a special color, size, or kind of light. Royal Museums Greenwich explains the name through the coming of winter, not through a change in the moon itself. The Farmers' Almanac notes that a moon near the horizon can appear orange, gold, or reddish because of atmospheric effects, but that is a separate matter from its seasonal label. A warm-looking moon above snowy fields is therefore no contradiction: Cold Moon describes the season associated with the name, not a required appearance.
Cold Moon dates, 2025 to 2030
Between 2025 and 2030 the Cold Moon falls as early as December 1 (2028) and as late as December 23 (2026), in Gemini or Cancer: a full moon sits opposite the Sun, which at this time of year is in Sagittarius or Capricorn.
When the name moves
December 2028 has two full moons: the Cold Moon on December 1 and a Blue Moon on December 31. The first keeps the month's name; the second is the Blue Moon.
The Cold Moon is the same disc for everyone. Which part of your own chart it falls across depends on your birth date, and that is what a personal reading looks at. See a reading built from your birth moon →
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When is the Cold Moon in 2026?
On Wednesday, December 23, 2026, at 8:28 PM EST (Dec 24, 01:28 UTC), with the Moon in Cancer. Central, Mountain and Pacific clocks read one, two and three hours earlier.
Is the Cold Moon the same as the Long Night Moon?
Both appear as names for December's full moon, but publications differ in their cultural attributions. The Old Farmer's Almanac credits Long Night Moon to the Mohican, while timeanddate includes it among Old English and Anglo-Saxon names. The Farmers' Almanac uses the variant Long Nights Moon and connects it with December's lengthy nights.
Does the Cold Moon always happen on the winter solstice?
The name does not require a full moon on the solstice itself. Timeanddate connects the long-night naming tradition with the December solstice, while the Old Farmer's Almanac and the Farmers' Almanac use Cold Moon as December's seasonal label. The solstice helps explain the setting of darkness and winter, rather than defining the exact occurrence of the full moon.
Is the Cold Moon always a supermoon?
No, the two labels describe different things. Cold Moon is a seasonal name, whereas the Old Farmer's Almanac explains a supermoon as a full moon occurring at or near the moon's closest approach to Earth in its orbit. A December full moon can carry both labels, but being called Cold Moon does not establish its distance or apparent size.
The months either side
Sources for the name and its history: almanac.com · timeanddate.com · farmersalmanac.com · en.wikipedia.org · rmg.co.uk · vaonis.com · mentalfloss.com. Dates, times and signs: our own calculation, checked against the US Naval Observatory.