When is the full moon in July?

The date changes every year, because the lunar cycle lasts about 29.5 days and doesn’t line up with our months. The exact lunations for the current year are shown on this page, and the full moon calendar gives the overall view.

Why does July’s full moon look so big?

Because we often watch it near the horizon, where the moon illusion is at full force: the brain compares its disc to the landmarks of the landscape and enlarges it. Some years it also coincides with a “supermoon”, when the moon passes closest to Earth on its orbit.

Lunar calendar · July

The moon in July July

In July, the moon crosses the shortest nights of the year. Its full moon carries the name Buck Moon, inherited from the North American almanacs: it’s the moment when a buck’s antlers regrow at full speed. Low on the horizon, often golden, it lets itself be watched without effort in the softness of summer evenings, when staying up late asks for no courage at all.

The essentials

Traditional full moon: the Buck Moon
Origin of the name: a buck’s antlers regrow at full speed at this point in the summer
Season: the heart of summer, the shortest nights of the year
In the sky: a full moon low on the horizon, often golden as it rises
Keyword for the month: momentum

July’s lunar mood

July gives the briefest nights of the year: the sky goes fully dark only late, and dawn comes back quickly. The moon takes on a charm of its own here. A full moon always sits opposite the sun; in summer, then, it borrows the low path the sun follows in winter, gliding along the horizon, broad and amber.

That sense of size comes, in fact, from a well-documented illusion: near the horizon, the eye compares the moon’s disc to the trees and rooftops, and the brain enlarges it. Photograph it, and it measures no more than usual. None of that takes anything from the show; it simply tells you that wonder is also made in the looking.

Why the “Buck Moon”?

The name comes from the North American farmers’ almanacs, which popularized in the early twentieth century a set of names drawn from the Algonquin peoples. July is the month when a buck’s antlers, shed at the end of winter, regrow under their velvet at an astonishing rate: sometimes more than a centimeter a day, one of the fastest growths in the animal world.

Other names circulate for the same moon: the Thunder Moon, for the storms that roll in at the close of a summer day, or the Hay Moon in the countryside of Europe, in the thick of the haymaking. Each culture christened its full moons with whatever it saw out of the window; that’s the whole beauty of these old calendars.

July’s gentle rituals

July invites the simplest contemplation there is: watching the full moon rise at dusk, still golden from the thickness of the atmosphere, from a balcony, a beach or a meadow. The evenings are mild enough to linger outside, and the low moon lends itself to lovely photographs with something in the foreground.

If you keep a lunar journal, note what the short nights do to your sleep and your energy. Tradition links this month to momentum, like a buck’s antlers regrowing: July’s new moon is a fine time to mark, symbolically, the start of the second half of the year.

And in the garden?

In the garden, July harvests, waters in the evening and already sows the autumn vegetables: the day-by-day detail awaits you in the July lunar gardening calendar.

The lunations of July (exact dates)

Calculated from the ephemeris, in London time, and rechecked every night. Each lunation has its own detailed page.

Frequently asked questions

When is the full moon in July?: The date changes every year, because the lunar cycle lasts about 29.5 days and doesn’t line up with our months. The exact lunations for the current year are shown on this page, and the full moon calendar gives the overall view.
Why does July’s full moon look so big?: Because we often watch it near the horizon, where the moon illusion is at full force: the brain compares its disc to the landmarks of the landscape and enlarges it. Some years it also coincides with a “supermoon”, when the moon passes closest to Earth on its orbit.