The Beaver Supermoon Will Light Up The Sky Tonight

After a week of strangely tropical weather rumbled across the gulf stream, our seasonal hankerings have been postponed – but the November’s full moon still carries these connotations. Think stocking up, hunkering down and bedding in just as a beaver might before the cold season floods in full force.

Every November, the full moon is called the Beaver Moon, but 2025’s is also a special supermoon. Here’s how to see it.

What Is The Beaver Moon?

Next lighting up the sky tonight (5 November), ‘Beaver Moon’ is the nickname given to the full moon we see in November — just one of many quirky names we give our moons, akin to the Hunter’s Moon of October, the Wolf Moon of January and the Strawberry Moon of June.

So why beavers for November? Because this is when the wood-loving rodents generally start to build their dams and lodges, store their food for the winter solstice and grow a thicker coat as the cold creeps in. With these wintery connotations, November’s full moon is also known as the Frost Moon.

First used to describe November’s full moon in 1778, the more morose interpretation of the Beaver Moon is that, under the large moon’s silvery glow, Native American people would set hunting traps to capture and kill beavers for food. For a similar reason, November’s full moon is also known as the Deer Rutting Moon.

If you turn your attention to the sky tonight, you might notice the moon looks a little larger than usual. Of course, the Beaver Moon is by definition a full moon – but that’s not why it looks so large. Instead the Beaver Moon is a supermoon, a lunar phenomenon in which the moon appears larger and brighter because it is in fact a bit closer to Earth thanks to its elliptical orbit. They happen three to four times every year; in 2025, that includes April’s Pink Moon and November’s Beaver Moon, with the next one slated for December (aka the Cold Moon). You can read more about what that means here.

When To See It

The sun will set at 4.26pm this evening, meaning the full Beaver supermoon (which will have risen by 3.54pm) will be clear in the sky, casting a glow over our Bonfire Night celebrations. It will then climb higher across the sky, reaching its peak at about 9pm.

It’s set to be the biggest and brightest supermoon of the year, as it is the closest moon to Earth in 2025. That said, it won’t be noticeably enormous – but you certainly won’t need your binoculars to see it.

And a little bonus for stargazers: if you look to the right of the Beaver Moon, you will see a brighter-than-average star, which is actually the planet Saturn.

Getty Images

When Is The Next Full Moon?

The Beaver Moon is the penultimate full moon of the year, followed by the Cold Moon, which will rise in the sky on 4 December 2025. There is a full moon every month, and each has a special name. They are as follows:

• January: Wolf Moon
• February: Snow Moon
• March: Worm Moon
• April: Pink Moon
• May: Flower Moon
• June: Strawberry Moon
• July: Buck Moon
• August: Sturgeon Moon
• September: Harvest Moon
• October: Hunter’s Moon
• November: Beaver Moon
• December: Cold Moon

Some years involve 13 moons instead of 12. In that case, we call the additional moon a Blue Moon – hence the ‘once in a blue moon’ adage. You can read more about Blue Moons here.