Sociolatte

This New Year's Eve we are going to see a blue moon. It has nothing to do with the shade or hue of the moon. It is simply a colloquial term for something that is very rare. There will be two full moon's this month the first having appeared on Dec 2.  It's the first time this is happening from 1871 and only the fourth from 1900.  On very rare occasions the moon can actually sport a bluish tint due to atmospheric conditions caused by forest fires or volcanic eruptions. It’s even happened fairly recently. The moon was a little blue across many sections of eastern North America in September 1950, because of smoke from widespread forest fires in western Canada. Also, after the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991, there were many sightings of a physically blue moon all around the world. Fortunately these calamities don’t happen that often, and that lends itself to the creation of the phrase “once in a blue moon.” The astronomical definition of a bl...