Arkansas Storm Team Blog: October's rare Harvest Supermoon

Written By Apo September 30, 2025 Add Comment

There's a lot of discrepancy surrounding October's full moon this year. Some media outlets are reporting that it's a Full Hunter's Moon, some media outlets are saying it's a Full Harvest Moon, and some media outlets are saying it's a Hunter's Supermoon. But the truth is, this October's full moon is technically none of these names.

October's full moon has the Harvest name this year due to its proximity to the fall equinox. The fall equinox occurred on September 22, 2025. September's full moon occurred on September 6, 2025. Whichever full moon in September or October is closer to the fall equinox receives the name Harvest Moon. While it's usually September that receives the Harvest Moon name, roughly every 3 years, it's October's title. After 2025, the next October Harvest Moon is in 2028.

On Monday, October 6, the Harvest Supermoon occurs. In Little Rock, moonrise occurs at 7:03 p.m., just after sunset, making the viewing of the full moon rising a wonderful experience with hues of orange as it rises over the horizon. The moon will still appear full in the days leading up to Monday and the days following Monday. It'll appear slightly bigger and brighter, too, since it's technically a supermoon.

A supermoon means a full or a new moon falls on Perigee. Perigee is the closest approach that the Moon makes to Earth in its orbit around the Earth. When a supermoon occurs with a full moon, the moon looks bigger and brighter than it does with a normal full moon. But October's full moon doesn't fall exactly on Perigee.

In October of 2025, Perigee occurs on October 8. This is 38 hours after the peak illumination of October's full moon. Even though the full moon doesn't exactly align with Perigee, it'll still be much closer to Earth than most full moons. This means that it technically earns the title of supermoon.

After October, 3 more supermoons occur to end 2025 and to start 2026. On November 5, the Beaver Supermoon occurs, on December 4, the Cold Supermoon occurs, and on January 13, the Wolf Supermoon occurs. With October in mind, this is a series of 4 supermoons, technically.