Supermoons in November and December 2026: the Beaver Moon and the Cold Moon

The last two full Moons of 2026 are both supermoons. The Beaver Moon is exactly full on the morning of Tuesday 24 November in the Americas and that evening in India, so wherever you are, the evening of the 24th is the one to watch. The Cold Moon is full on the night of 23 to 24 December, about 356,740 km away, the closest full Moon of the year. Both times it comes up low in the northeast, in most places within an hour of sunset. I worked out moonrise for eight cities with the engine inside Orbit, my Mac sky app, and the times are below.

First, the exact moments. NASA's table of Moon phases gives them in UTC; the rest is time zones.

City	Beaver Moon	Cold Moon
Los Angeles	6:53 AM Tue 24 Nov	5:28 PM Wed 23 Dec
Chicago	8:53 AM Tue 24 Nov	7:28 PM Wed 23 Dec
New York	9:53 AM Tue 24 Nov	8:28 PM Wed 23 Dec
London	2:53 PM Tue 24 Nov	1:28 AM Thu 24 Dec
Berlin	3:53 PM Tue 24 Nov	2:28 AM Thu 24 Dec
India	8:23 PM Tue 24 Nov	6:58 AM Thu 24 Dec
Tokyo	11:53 PM Tue 24 Nov	10:28 AM Thu 24 Dec
Sydney	1:53 AM Wed 25 Nov	12:28 PM Thu 24 Dec

When is the Beaver Moon in 2026?

In the Americas and the UK the Moon is still below the horizon when it's exactly full, and in Berlin it has only just risen, low in the northeast in daylight. So on that side of the world, watch it rise later that day. India gets the moment itself with the Moon already up, and Tokyo has the best seat: at 11:53 PM the Moon is 78 degrees up, nearly overhead.

In Sydney the moment falls after midnight, at 1:53 AM on Wednesday 25 November, so the night of Tuesday the 24th is still the one to watch, with moonrise at 7:34 PM in the east-northeast.

NASA JPL's Horizons puts the Moon about 360,770 km away at that moment, centre to centre, a little farther than it will be in December. The Old Farmer's Almanac says the name comes from the time of year when beavers shut themselves into their lodges with the winter's food stored, and it calls this the first of three supermoons in a row, running to January.

When is the Cold Moon in 2026?

December's is the closer of the two, and the closest full Moon of 2026. Horizons has it about 356,740 km away when it's exactly full, against about 406,100 km for the year's farthest, on 31 May. The Almanac's December page gives 356,740 km too. About seven hours after it's full, around 08:40 UTC, the Moon reaches its closest point of the whole year, about 356,650 km.

The moment itself is 01:28 UTC on Thursday 24 December, which is still the evening of Wednesday the 23rd across the Americas.

Cold Moon, a Mohawk name, is the one most people use, says the same page. Another is the Long Night Moon, from the Mohicans, because it rises during the longest nights of the northern year (the solstice is on 21 December, the 22nd in India, though the earliest sunsets come before it).

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A closer look

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A starry night sky over dark hills facing east, with faint constellation lines and compass marks NE, E and SE. A full Moon labelled 'Moon · 100%' sits left of centre above the hills. Capella is labelled up and to its left, Aldebaran up and to its right, and Betelgeuse low over the hills right of the Moon, with a small knot of stars above Aldebaran.

Outside, the full Moon and New York's streetlights wash out the fainter stars, and Orbit dims nothing for either, so the real view is the Moon and a few of the labelled stars. Betelgeuse, low on the right, is Orion's shoulder, and how to find Orion has the rest of him.

Ten days before the Cold Moon, the Geminids peak around the night of 13 to 14 December with only a young crescent Moon in the way, one that sets early in the evening. The Leonids come the week before the Beaver Moon.

Is there a full Moon on Christmas Eve 2026?

In Europe, India, the rest of Asia and Australia, yes: the exact moment falls on 24 December by the local clock. In the Americas it comes on the evening of the 23rd. Nobody can see a day's difference in a full Moon, though, and on Christmas Eve evening it's 98 to 100% lit in every city in my table, rising between sunset (Tokyo) and 55 minutes after it (Los Angeles). By 8 PM it's 27 degrees up, nearly due east, from New York.

Moonrise times on the supermoon evenings

A full Moon sits opposite the Sun in the sky, so it comes up in the northeast as the Sun goes down in the southwest. On most of these evenings that puts moonrise within an hour of sunset, one side or the other. London, Berlin and Tokyo on 23 December are the exceptions, with the Moon up more than an hour before the Sun sets.

City	Moonrise 24 Nov	Moonrise 23 Dec	Moonrise 24 Dec	Sunset 24 Nov / 24 Dec
Los Angeles	4:42 PM	4:29 PM	5:44 PM	4:45 / 4:49 PM
Chicago	4:07 PM	3:50 PM	5:07 PM	4:23 / 4:24 PM
New York	4:15 PM	3:58 PM	5:14 PM	4:32 / 4:34 PM
London	3:17 PM	2:48 PM	4:07 PM	4:01 / 3:55 PM
Berlin	3:15 PM	2:44 PM	4:03 PM	4:02 / 3:56 PM
Bengaluru	5:30 PM	5:15 PM	6:24 PM	5:50 / 6:00 PM
Tokyo	3:48 PM	3:22 PM	4:32 PM	4:30 / 4:33 PM
Sydney	7:34 PM	7:32 PM	8:37 PM	7:45 / 8:07 PM

Hills and buildings add a few minutes, and your own spot can be a minute or two off. Orbit doesn't show moonrise times in the app, so I ran its engine directly and checked the results against Horizons. They agree to within about a minute: for New York on 24 November, Orbit says 4:15 PM and Horizons, which rounds to whole minutes, says 4:16.

What is a supermoon, and does it look bigger?

There's no official definition. NASA's rule of thumb is a full Moon that comes when the Moon is near the closest point of its slightly oval orbit. timeanddate, which traces the word to the astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979, uses a hard line of 360,000 km instead. That's why some lists have two supermoons this year and some have one.

Source	Rule	24 Nov	24 Dec
NASA	Near the Moon's closest point	Yes	Yes
timeanddate	Closer than 360,000 km	No (about 360,770 km)	Yes
Old Farmer's Almanac, BBC Sky at Night	Both listed	Yes	Yes

The Hunter's Moon on 26 October misses out. It's about 368,900 km away, and the Moon doesn't reach its closest point that month until two days later.

NASA says a supermoon can look up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the year's smallest full Moon. Next to an ordinary full Moon the gain is more like 6 or 7% wider, going by timeanddate, and this year's two supermoons differ from each other by about 1%.

Side by side in photos, that shows. Out under the sky with nothing to compare it to, almost nobody could tell, and BBC Sky at Night calls the difference from the full Moons either side "imperceptible".

Why is the Moon so big tonight?

If it's low over the rooftops, that's mostly the Moon illusion. NASA explains that a camera with the same zoom measures the low Moon the same width as the high one, so the extra size is in your head. That's why the moment to look is soon after moonrise.

Those giant Moons in photos online are a long lens at work. The same NASA page says photographers zoom in on a low Moon with buildings or a hill in the frame, and it looks huge because everything in the frame is magnified, not only the Moon. Go out at the moonrise time in the table and look between northeast and east-northeast, with a rooftop or a tree line under the Moon.

Supermoon 2026 in India

The Beaver Moon is full at 8:23 PM on 24 November, when it's already 36 degrees up in the east-northeast over Bengaluru. It rises there at 5:30 PM, twenty minutes before sunset.

December is trickier. The exact moment, 6:58 AM on the 24th, comes 13 minutes after the Moon sets in Bengaluru. From Mumbai and Delhi it's still up then, low in the west-northwest, and sets around 7:20 to 7:30 AM. The evenings to watch are the 23rd (moonrise 5:15 PM in Bengaluru) and the 24th (6:24 PM), with the Moon all but full on both.

Bengaluru is the only Indian city in Orbit's menu, so it's the one I computed. Horizons has Mumbai's moonrise a few minutes after Bengaluru's and Delhi's about 35 to 40 minutes before it.

⊕ Inspect the image

A closer look

Actual sizeClose ×

A blue twilight sky above dark hills facing east, with compass marks NE, E and SE. A full Moon labelled 'Moon · 100%' sits low on the left, and Saturn is labelled high up, a little right of centre.

When is the next supermoon after December 2026?

Friday 22 January 2027, full at 12:17 UTC by the same NASA table, which is 7:17 AM in New York and 5:47 PM in India. It's the third of the Almanac's three in a row, about 357,600 km away by Horizons. By timeanddate's stricter 360,000 km line, the next ones after that are 10 February and 10 March 2028.

Watching the supermoon from your Mac

Orbit's desktop faces south by default in the northern hemisphere, which misses moonrise. Right-click the Moon in the menu bar and set Facing to East, and on 24 November and 23 December the desktop has the full Moon coming up over the hills in the east, where it really is. Switch on Labels on the Sky and it reads "Moon · 100%". The Moon in the menu bar and the Dock icon show tonight's phase too; hover over it for the percent.

Orbit draws the Moon the same size every night, about 1.8 degrees across, three and a half times the real thing, so it reads on a screen. On the desktop a supermoon looks like every other full Moon, which means Orbit's Moon has been super all along. There are no moonrise times or full-Moon alerts.

The sky redraws once a minute, so the Moon rises at the sky's own pace: you notice it when you look up after an hour, not while you watch (living with a real sky wallpaper is about that pace).

Orbit: Live Sky Desktop is $6.99 once on the Mac App Store (₹699 in India), with no subscription and no account, for macOS 15 or later on Apple silicon and Intel. There are screenshots on the Mac page.