4 Rare Supermoons in a Row over Missouri & Illinois Start in July

If you consider yourself a sky watcher, you'll want to prepare for some epic viewing over Missouri and Illinois as 4 rare supermoons back-to-back-to-back-to-back will happen starting early in July.

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What is a supermoon anyway?

As Wikipedia points out, a supermoon happens when "the closest that the Moon comes to the Earth in its elliptic orbit—resulting in a slightly larger-than-usual apparent size of the lunar disk as viewed from Earth."

For the record, supermoons happen all the time. They just don't always line up like what's about to happen in the middle of 2023. According to The Old Farmer's Almanac, the first supermoon will happen on July 3, 2023. It's called the Buck Moon.

That lunar event will be followed by something even rarer. Two supermoons will then take place in August. The first will happen on Tuesday, August 1, 2023 and will be the Sturgeon Moon while Wednesday, August 30, 2023 will be yet another supermoon called the Blue Moon.

The grand finale of this supermoon lineup will take place on Friday, September 29, 2023 when a supermoon called the Harvest Moon will happen.

So how did these supermoons get such unique names?

The Old Farmer's Almanac says they came from "Native American, Colonial American, and European sources" from centuries ago in most cases. Most are appropriate for the season such as the Harvest Moon which happens (you guessed it) during harvest season. Others play into the imaginations and sometimes superstitions of early settlers.

If you enjoy moon and sky stuff, make sure to save the dates for these 4 back-to-back-to-back-to-back supermoons. You won't see a lineup like this in quite awhile once this cycle is complete.