When is the Beaver Moon?

The Beaver Moon is the name for the full Moon that usually falls in November. Its date in this record is 24 Nov 2026, 14:54 UTC, when the Moon is in Gemini. The Beaver Moon returns in the same month in later years, and the dates for each year are listed below. The record checks each year up to 2036, and a year with no Beaver Moon is noted beside the dates. Dates shift from year to year, so this page reads its list from the sky record, not a fixed table.

The name is linked to a tradition about the season, not to anything the sky records. The name is often linked to the weeks when beavers are busy repairing their lodges and storing food before the ground freezes. The idea is that the animals' work marks the turn of the year, so the Moon that comes at that time takes their name. The account is widely repeated. This page cannot point to one original source for it, so it is presented here as tradition and nothing more.

The sky side of the name is simpler. The Beaver Moon is usually the full Moon that falls in November. A full Moon comes about once a lunar month, and its date moves from one year to the next. The name stays with the month while the day changes, which is why the dates above differ. A name like this is a label for a recurring event, not a forecast of what that Moon will bring.

Other traditions gave the same month other names, and those names do not always agree. Some refer to the harvest, some to hunting, and some to the cold. Where one name is used for a given Moon, another list may use a different name for it. Readers who meet a different name for the same November Moon are usually reading another list, not a mistake.

The rule used on this site is plain. The Beaver Moon is usually the full Moon in November. Where another name takes that Moon in a given year, the Beaver Moon is skipped for that year. Any year without one is noted beside the dates. For a closer look at how a Moon's phase and position are counted, read the lunation entry.

The full Moon is exact at one moment, and the 2026 Beaver Moon is exact at 24 Nov 2026, 14:54 UTC. You do not need to see that exact moment to enjoy the Moon. A full Moon looks nearly round for a night or two either side of the exact time. The evening near the date is a good window for most readers.

Find a spot with a clear view of the eastern horizon as the Moon comes up. The Moon can look larger near the horizon than high in the sky. That is an effect of how the eye reads the land, not a change in the Moon itself. A single tree, a roofline or a hill makes a useful frame. Bring a jacket if evenings are cold where you are, and a still half hour outdoors goes faster than you expect.

If the sky is cloudy, the date is not lost. Full Moons repeat, and the Beaver Moon returns in a later year, so a missed night is not a missed reading. A notebook helps here. Write the date, the place and what the Moon looked like. You will have a record that belongs to you rather than to a list.

For the sky itself, the zodiac dates page explains how the signs are laid out along the path the Sun and Moon follow. Reading it before the date makes the sign in the next section easier to follow.

At the moment of this full Moon the Moon is in Gemini. A sign is a band of sky, and there are twelve of them in a full circle. The Moon moves through all twelve in about one month. The sign tells you which 30-degree band of the Moon's path, counted from the March equinox point, the Moon is in at that moment. It does not change how the night feels, and it does not decide what the coming weeks hold.

The sign for this Moon is one fact inside a longer chart. Two people looking at the same full Moon may notice different things, because a sign sits inside a person's chart rather than replacing it. If you want to see where the Moon falls in your own chart, the birth chart calculator takes your details and lays it out.

The sign on this page is one fact about one night. It is fixed only for that night, and the dates above show when the next Beaver Moons arrive. Read it the way you would read a clock at one moment: accurate for that moment, and nothing more.