SUMMER FRUIT
‘Tis the season of strawberries to pick yourself from your garden or the
fields; to eat with cream or ice-cream; to make into jam; to consume while
sitting watching the tennis from Wimbledon awaiting an Andy Murray victory.
But what is a strawberry moon?
The headlines on the Daily Mail “Rarer than a blue moon! Once-in-a-
generation strawberry moon lights up the summer solstice sky for the first
time in 49 years and it won't happen again until 2062”.
This year the summer solstice brought about 17 hours of daylight to
Northern hemisphere, where the June full moon is also known as the honey
moon, the hot moon and the rose moon. But the phenomenon is known in
the Southern hemisphere as the Long Night Moon.
In that part of the planet, the summer solstice actually marks the day of the
year with the least daylight.
The coincidence of the strawberry moon and of the summer solstice
changed the aspect of the moon as it rose in the sky, the Old Farmer's
Almanac explained.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac, founded in 1792, advised that this June, 2016,
the solstice and full Moon coincide—a rare event, indeed, that hasn’t
happened in nearly 70 years.
The month of June’s Full Moon’s name is the Full Strawberry Moon. June’s
Full Strawberry Moon got its name because the Algonquin tribes knew it as a
signal to gather ripening fruit. It was often known as the Full Rose Moon in
Europe and the Honey Moon.
The sun was exceptionally high while the moon remained unusually low.
'This forces its light through thicker air, which also tends to be humid this
time of year, and the combination typically makes it amber coloured,'
astronomer Bob Berman explained.
The Independent Newspaper states: “Stonehenge is a popular site to
celebrate because of its connection to the solstice.”
The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, a day falling around late
June when there are approximately 17 hours of light.
The name comes from the Latin solstitium meaning “sun stands still”. It
happens because the sun stops heading north at the Tropic of Cancer and
then returns back southwards.
In the northern hemisphere this means the days begin to get shorter.
But 2016 is a special year, because the solstice coincides with the
Strawberry Moon, a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.
We have had the longest day, so unfortunately we are on the slow, slippery
slope to winter (Sigh! Most of us haven’t had our summer holidays yet).
Editor
StOM Page 23