The Beaver Moon is November's full moon, and in 2026 it peaks at 14:53 UTC on Tuesday 24 November. On Australia's east coast that lands in the small hours of Wednesday 25 November, which is a very Beaver Moon thing to do: show up while everyone sensible is asleep. It is also a supermoon by the Old Farmer's Almanac's count, it sits in Gemini, and it is named after a rodent stocking its pantry for a winter you are not going to have. Below: the exact time in every Australian time zone, where the name really comes from (less ancient than the internet claims), and what to do with a cold-weather moon at the warm end of spring.
When is the Beaver Moon in 2026?
NASA's table of lunar phases puts the November 2026 full moon at 14:53 Universal Time on Tuesday 24 November. Daylight saving started on Sunday 4 October 2026 in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, while Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory stay on standard time (NSW Government). So the country splits across two dates:
| Where | Time zone | Full moon peak |
|---|---|---|
| Universal Time | UTC | Tue 24 Nov, 2:53 pm |
| Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Hobart | AEDT (UTC+11) | Wed 25 Nov, 1:53 am |
| Adelaide | ACDT (UTC+10:30) | Wed 25 Nov, 1:23 am |
| Brisbane | AEST (UTC+10) | Wed 25 Nov, 12:53 am |
| Darwin | ACST (UTC+9:30) | Wed 25 Nov, 12:23 am |
| Perth | AWST (UTC+8) | Tue 24 Nov, 10:53 pm |
The peak is an instant, not an event you can miss. A full moon sits opposite the Sun, so it comes up around sunset and stays up most of the night, and it looks round to the naked eye for a night either side. Practically, that makes the evening of Tuesday 24 November your Beaver Moon night anywhere in Australia, with Perth getting the tidiest version: the exact peak arrives before midnight, while the moon is still well up. For any other night of the month, our moon phase today tool shows exactly where the moon is in its cycle.
Is the Beaver Moon 2026 a supermoon?
The Beaver Moon 2026 is a supermoon according to the Old Farmer's Almanac, which counts it as the first of three in a row (November, December and January). NASA's hourly Moon data for 2026 has it about 360,760 km from Earth at the peak, with perigee, the closest point of that orbit, arriving roughly a day and a half later.
"Supermoon" is a popular label rather than a formal astronomical one, so you will find sites that leave this one off their lists. What it means in real terms: on NASA's numbers the November full moon appears about 13 per cent wider than the smallest full moon of 2026, the Blue Moon of 31 May. Nobody can see 13 per cent from memory, so if you want the effect, watch it rising low over the horizon, where the Almanac notes the moon looks bigger anyway.
Why do they call it a Beaver Moon?
They call it a Beaver Moon because, in a northern November, this is when beavers finish their winter preparations. The Old Farmer's Almanac puts it plainly:
"This is the time of year when beavers begin to take shelter in their lodges, having laid up sufficient food stores for the long winter ahead."Catherine Boeckmann, Executive Digital Editor, The Old Farmer's Almanac
The Almanac gives a second, less cuddly reason too: during the North American fur trade, this was the season for trapping beavers for their thick winter pelts. Both explanations belong firmly to the Northern Hemisphere, and neither has anything to do with an Australian November.
How old is the name, really?
Older than you might think, and less "ancient sacred wisdom" than the internet suggests. The best-known early printed source is the explorer Jonathan Carver's 1778 Travels Through the Interior Parts of North-America. Carver lists month names he attributed to the peoples he travelled among, and November is the Beaver Moon because the beavers begin sheltering in their houses with enough provisions laid up for winter. If that sounds familiar, it should: the Almanac's modern explanation is very nearly Carver's wording, roughly 250 years on.
The fine print matters, though. As Wikipedia's history of full moon names sets out, Carver's names were for lunar months beginning at each new moon, not for the full moon itself, and other 19th century writers recorded completely different lists. The neat one-name-per-month set we use today was popularised by 20th century almanacs, which did not even agree on where it came from: the 1937 Maine Farmers' Almanac said its full moon names "were named by our early English ancestors", while later editions credited Native American peoples. So the honest version is this: the Beaver Moon has genuine roots in 18th century North America, the credit has been shuffled around ever since, and anyone selling it to you as a timeless ceremonial name is selling something.
Other names for November's full moon
The Beaver Moon is not the only name for November's full moon. The Old Farmer's Almanac records these alternatives, attributing each to a particular people:
| Name | Attributed to | What it refers to |
|---|---|---|
| Frost Moon | Cree and Assiniboine | The turn to freezing weather |
| Freezing Moon | Anishinaabe | Winter arriving |
| Whitefish Moon | Algonquin | The whitefish spawning season |
| Deer Rutting Moon | Dakota and Lakota | Deer seeking mates |
| Digging (or Scratching) Moon | Tlingit | Animals foraging and bears digging winter dens |
Notice the theme. Every one of them is about animals and weather getting ready for the cold. These were working calendars for people whose survival depended on noticing those things, which is worth remembering before you treat them as decorative.
The Beaver Moon in Australia: a winter name in late spring
Here is the part the American almanacs skip. The traditional full moon names are Northern Hemisphere seasonal labels, and in Australia November is the last month of spring, with summer starting on 1 December under the meteorological seasons we use (seasons explained). Nothing here is freezing over. The days are still lengthening toward the December solstice, and the last thing anyone is doing is battening down for winter.
The sky is different too. Because a full moon sits opposite the Sun, and the late spring Sun rides high in our sky, the Beaver Moon rides low. NASA's data has the moon about 25 degrees north of the celestial equator at this full moon, which works out (as a rough calculation that ignores refraction) to a highest point of about 31 degrees above the northern horizon from Sydney, 27 from Melbourne and only 22 from Hobart, while Darwin gets it at a more respectable 52. Look north, not up.
And Australia has never needed a borrowed beaver to tell the time of year. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples hand down detailed seasonal observations from generation to generation, and the Bureau of Meteorology hosts a number of traditional seasonal calendars. If you want a moon practice rooted in the place you actually live, reading the one for your region is a far better start than importing November from Maine.
So what does the Beaver Moon mean down here? Swap "prepare for winter" for "finish the year's building before December eats your calendar". Late spring is when the end-of-year rush starts, and the beaver is, frankly, a decent role model: it does its structural work early and does not leave the dam until Christmas Eve.
Beaver Moon meaning: what it is traditionally said to signify
In modern moon practice a full moon is traditionally said to mark culmination and release, the point where something you started becomes visible. The Beaver Moon's own associations come straight from its name: preparation, practical security, finishing what you built and making home a place you can actually rest in. None of that is mystical. It is just good advice with a moon attached.
Astrologically, the Sun has just moved into Sagittarius in late November, so the full moon opposite it falls in Gemini. In astrological tradition Gemini rules words, messages, ideas and the endless small admin of daily life, set against the big-picture, run-away-to-somewhere-else mood of Sagittarius season. Read together, this full moon is said to highlight the gap between the grand plans and the emails you have not answered. Treat that as a prompt for reflection, not a prediction.
A Beaver Moon ritual (that is mostly admin)
The beaver does not light candles. It builds things and stores food. This ritual respects that, and takes about twenty minutes on the evening of 24 November.
- Pick your dam. Name one unfinished thing from this year that you genuinely intend to complete before the holidays. One. Not the list of eleven.
- Do a stores check. On paper, write what you are carrying into December: money, energy, goodwill, leave days. Gemini loves a list, and seeing it written down is usually the moment you realise which commitment has to go.
- Write the message. This is a Gemini full moon, so write the thing you have been avoiding saying: the follow-up, the apology, the "no, I can't host this year". Send it or don't. Either way, it is out of your head.
- Go outside and look north. The moon will be low. Stand there for a few minutes without your phone, which is the hardest step for most people.
- Close it out. Say one sentence out loud about what you are finishing. If you like, leave a jar of water out overnight and make moon water for the busy weeks ahead.
Want more ways to work with this moon? Our guide to what to do on a full moon covers the broader practice, these full moon affirmations suit a release-and-finish moon nicely, and the rituals library has something for every phase.
What the evidence says
Here is the unglamorous truth: the Beaver Moon is a label, and the moon does not know what it is called. Everything real about it is astronomy: the exact timing, the distance, the angle in your sky. Everything else is tradition, which is worth something as a way of marking time and checking in with yourself, but is not evidence of anything happening to you. Use the name as a calendar prompt, not a forecast.
The Beaver Moon in the 2026 full moon sequence
The Beaver Moon follows October's Hunter's Moon, which peaked at 3:12 pm AEDT on Monday 26 October, and comes before the Cold Moon, which lands on Christmas Eve in Australia and is the closest full moon of the year. You can see every date at once in our full moon calendar for 2026, find out which moon phase you were born under, or head back to the moon phases hub for the whole cycle.
Frequently asked questions
The Beaver Moon in 2026 peaks at 14:53 UTC on Tuesday 24 November, according to NASA's lunar phase tables. In Australia that is 1:53 am AEDT on Wednesday 25 November in Sydney and Melbourne, 12:53 am AEST in Brisbane and 10:53 pm AWST on Tuesday 24 November in Perth. The best night to look is the evening of Tuesday 24 November.
They call it a Beaver Moon because November is when North American beavers retreat to their lodges with their winter food stores laid up. The Old Farmer's Almanac also links it to the fur trade, when November was the season for trapping beavers for their winter pelts. The explanation appears as early as Jonathan Carver's 1778 travel account.
The Beaver Moon is traditionally said to mean preparation, practical security and finishing what you have built before the year closes. Like any full moon it is associated with culmination and release. In 2026 it falls in Gemini, which astrological tradition links to words, messages and admin, so read it as a prompt to finish conversations and tasks rather than as a prediction.
The Beaver Moon 2026 is a supermoon by the Old Farmer's Almanac's count, the first of three in a row running November, December and January. NASA's Moon data puts it about 360,760 km from Earth at its peak, with perigee about a day and a half later. Because "supermoon" is not a formal astronomical term, some lists leave it off.
The Beaver Moon is often called a Native American name, but the history is messier. Jonathan Carver recorded a Beaver Moon for November in 1778, attributing it to peoples he travelled among, while 20th century almanacs popularised the one-name-per-month list and disagreed about its origins. The 1937 Maine Farmers' Almanac even credited English ancestors.
Other names for the November full moon include the Frost Moon (Cree and Assiniboine), Freezing Moon (Anishinaabe), Whitefish Moon (Algonquin), Deer Rutting Moon (Dakota and Lakota) and Digging or Scratching Moon (Tlingit), as recorded by the Old Farmer's Almanac. Each one describes animals or weather preparing for the northern winter.
The Beaver Moon in Australia rises in late spring, not at the start of winter, because its name is a Northern Hemisphere seasonal label. It also sits low in the northern sky, topping out at roughly 31 degrees from Sydney. A useful local reading is to treat it as a prompt to finish the year's projects before December gets busy.
