Blood Moon Total Lunar Eclipse 2022: Updated MD Viewing Forecast

MARYLAND — The first of two total lunar eclipses visible to Maryland residents in 2022 occurs Sunday night into Monday and will turn May’s full flower moon blood red. Oh, and it’s also a supermoon — depending on whom you ask.

The night of May 15 through 16 will bring a full lunar eclipse to Maryland, so get those raincoats and telescopes ready if you wish to check out the astronomical sight.

Whether you’ll be able to see the stellar lunar event, of course, depends on the weather. The National Weather Service forecast for Sunday night calls for a chance of showers and thunderstorms before 2 a.m. with mostly cloudy skies.

Not everyone will see all three stages of the eclipse. People living in the eastern half of the country and all of South America will see every stage of the lunar eclipse, according to NASA. People in other parts of the United States will see totality but will miss other phases.

Here's what to expect in Maryland:

Moonrise is around 7:57 p.m. Sunday. It's worth taking a look because 1) rising full moons are pretty and 2) some celestial experts call it a supermoon (a bit more about that later).

Look for these stages of the eclipse:

• Penumbra will first be visible at 9:32 p.m.
• Partial eclipse begins at 10:27 p.m.
• Total eclipse begins at 11:29 p.m.
• Maximum eclipse at 12:11 a.m.
• Total eclipse ends at 12:53 a.m.
• Partial eclipse ends at 1:55 a.m.
• Penumbra is last visible at 2:50 a.m.

The entire eclipse will be over five hours long, starting at 9:32 p.m. EDT on Sunday, May 15, and lasting until 2:50 a.m. EDT on Monday, May 16, according to AccuWeather.

However, the total phase of the eclipse, when the moon changes color, will last only about an hour and a half, starting at 11:29 p.m. EDT and ending at 12:53 a.m. EDT. The middle of the eclipse will be the best time to look at the moon and will occur at 12:11 a.m. EDT.

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The moon will be high in the sky on the East Coast when the total lunar eclipse occurs, according to NASA. In many celestial events, including meteor showers, city dwellers miss the show if they're unable to find a dark sky.

With rainy weather forecast for parts of the state, you might find it best to watch the NASA livestream, or on Facebook, YouTube, or NASA.gov/live.

"It should be beautiful," astronomer Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory told The Washington Post. "You don't need any special equipment. All you need is a clear sky. It would be nice to have binoculars or a small telescope to follow it, because then you can watch as the moon creeps into the Earth's shadow and see how the shadow appears to move across some of the moon's prominent albedo features."

“Blood moon” is a descriptive rather than technical astronomical term, though The Old Farmer’s Almanac says the phrase is “hyped” and that a fully eclipsed moon is orange, or copper-colored like a penny, but not blood red. The moon’s color at totality can also vary depending upon the amount of dust, volcanic ash or other particulate matter in the atmosphere, and because of cloud cover, according to Space.com.

Weather permitting, the lunar eclipse is worth staying up late to watch, even if it isn’t a supermoon.

"Supermoon" isn’t an astronomical term either, but rather one coined by astrologer Richard Nolle, who calls a full or new moon a supermoon when it is at 90 percent of its closest point, or perigee, to Earth. Under Nolle’s definition, four full moons meet supermoon criteria: a new or “stealth” moon on Jan. 14, full moons on June 14 and July 13, and a new moon on Dec. 23.

However, Fred Espenak, a retired NASA astrophysicist who worked at the Goddard Space Flight Center, uses slightly different criteria. He says the May flower moon is the first of four supermoons in 2022. He also counts the June 14 and July 13 full moons as supermoons. Unlike Nolle, Espenak says the Aug. 12 full moon will be a supermoon (bad news for Perseids meteor shower fans, because the supermoon and the peak of the summertime favorite coincide).

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Either way, a supermoon isn’t bigger, and it doesn’t even look that much bigger in the sky when compared to a normal full moon. While it can look larger when it’s close to the horizon, that’s due to “the circuitry in your brain,” according to Universe Today which explained “it’s an optical illusion … so well known that it has its own name: Moon illusion.”

Although most often called the full flower moon, the May full moon is also known as the corn planting moon and the milk moon in the United States. In Asia, it is known as the Vesak Festival Moon because it corresponds with Buddha Jayanti or Buddha Purnima, a Buddhist holiday that marks the birth, enlightenment and death of Gautama Buddha.

The actual date of the Vesak festival depends on the calendar used in different countries and regions, but generally falls on or near the day of the May full moon.

If you miss the eclipse this month, the second 2022 total lunar eclipse on Nov. 8 will be visible across the Americas, Oceania and Asia.