Snow Moon

Native American folklore holds February/s full moon...which occurs tonight...was known as the Full Snow Moon...supposedly b/c the heaviest snowfalls occurred during the second month of the year.

Maybe the tribes of northern and eastern America called it that...maybe they didn/t. All too often...Anglo-saxons have come up with pleasing stories about native peoples with little or no basis in fact.

Nevertheless...it would make for better folklore...regardless the origin...if it were based on observations that February is the climatologically favored time of year for good snows in the NE.

Too bad it/s not so. For most stations in the NE CONUS...January has the highest period of record normal (PORN) snowfall. In some cases...the difference between one month and the other is small...and maybe a statistical test on the difference between the two means would fail to reject the null hypothesis...but the data suggest the Snow Moon probably belongs to January.