How many times in last 300 years have there been a blue moon in February?

Question

How many times in the last 300 years of recorded lunar activity has there been a "blue" moon in the month of February?

Answer 1

It's never happened in the last 300 years or before.

A blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month. Full moons are 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes (about twenty-nine and a half days) apart. February is 28 or 29 days long. It is impossible to fit an interval longer than 29 days in a 29 or fewer days long month.

A more interesting question is when was the last time a month had no full moon. Only February is less than 29.5 days. Any 30 or 31 day month MUST have at least one full moon. But it is possible to have full moons very late in January and very early in March missing February altogether

Whenever a full moon occurs late enough in January (the 30th or 31st), February will not have a full moon at all. This occurs or comes close to occurring about once every 235 lunar cycles, or every nineteen years. The last time this occurred was recently, in 1999. These were the full moons of early 1999:

1999 Jan 2 02:51
1999 Jan 31 16:08
1999 Mar 2 07:00
1999 Mar 31 22:50

One thing that is apparent is that when such a full-moonless February occurs, the previous January will have two full moons (i.e., a blue moon month) because one must occur so late in the month that there is room for one at the beginning of that January as well. Also, the following March will have an early full moon and MAY have another one on the 30th or 31st, also a blue moon month, as we just saw happened in 1999.

It is also possible that the next full moon after the early March one falls on April 1st, as occurred in 1961:

1961 Jan 1 23:06
1961 Jan 31 18:47
1961 Mar 2 13:34
1961 Apr 1 05:47
1961 Apr 30 18:41

In this case, instead of a full-moonless February being flanked by a blue-mooned January and a blue-mooned March, the second blue moon month is April (see above)

Answer 2

Hi. From the web. "Don't hold your breath!

The lunar month is 29.53 days long. The largest number of days in February is 29.00000000 days. This means that even if the first Full Moon of February was at midnight on February 1 of a Leap Year, the very next Full Moon would be 0.5 x 24 = 12 hours after midnight on February 29, or in other words on the first day of March! The last time there was a Full Moon on February 1 was in 1980 at 2:22 UT. This was a Leap Year so the very next Full Moon happened on March 1 at 21:00 UT. The next time we get a Full Moon on February 1 will be in the year 2026 at 22:10, which is not a Leap Year. The Full Moon after that will happen on March 3 at 11:39. "

Now since you said 300 years there was a calender change that may have made February longer by several days, but I think since Augustus Caesar took a day from February to make August have 31 days it has not happened. http://www.infoplease.com/spot/history-of-august.html

Answer 3

Its never going to happen a lunar month is longer than the month of February even in a leap year.

But interestingly enough you can actually have a blue moon in January and then again in March because of the length of February is just barely shorter than a lunar month.

Answer 4

Zero.
Blue moon means the second full moon in the same month.
Feb is too short to have 2 full moons because they are just over 29 days apart.

Answer 5

a BLUE MOON your having a laugh ain't you?..I know there was a red one a while ago caused by the sun (probably brighter than normal for some scientific reason)

Answer 6

I think once or twice is it.

Answer 7

like ALLOT =]