Full Moon. Credit: NASA - color enhanced by Florida Word.
The April 2025 Full Moon will occur tonight, Saturday, April 12, 2025, beginning with a moonrise over Florida’s east coast at 7:38 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (with a few minutes of variation depending on your exact location).
The Full Moon will technically be 99.9% full at 8:22 p.m. EDT on April 12.
A Full Moon in April is also called a Pink Moon because Colonial Americans learned that name from Native Americans who associated the April Full Moon with the blooming of pink flowers in early Spring named wild ground phlox, according to the Farmer’s Almanac.
Other names for April’s Full Moon are also associated with Springtime: Full Sprouting Grass Moon (sprouting vegetation in Spring), Egg Moon (animal mating in Spring), and Full Fish Moon (when fish spawn in spring).
The time of year that a Full Moon happens does not affect its color. The Full Moon on April 12, 2025 will likely be pearly-gray to most locations on Earth just like any other Full Moon. But particles in the local atmosphere caused by weather, forest fires, volcanoes, and pollution can filter out certain light colors of the moon.
This is especially true when the moon rises or sets near the horizon and the sunlight reflecting from the moon has more atmosphere to travel through before reaching the viewer on Earth. Full Moons have appeared pink, yellow, red, blue, green, and (most often) orange.
This full moon is also a micromoon. According to NASA, a Micro or Mini Moon occurs because the Moon is in an elliptical orbit around the Earth.
When the Moon is farthest from the Earth, it is at its orbital apogee, which is why a Micro Moon is also known as a Apogee Moon.
A full moon at its farthest point to Earth will still be bright. But it won’t look much, if any, different than a “normal” full moon and will not have any readily observable effect on our planet except perhaps slightly less higher tides.
The first full moon of Spring is also called an “Easter Moon” and “The Paschal Moon.” In 2025, the full moon on April 12 is considered an Easter Moon because the Christian church has set the First Day of Spring on the fixed date of March 21 (while the Equinox and astronomical First Day of Spring can vary from March 19 through March 21).
For those planning to walk, bike, or run along the beach in Florida, this Full Moon brings along with it a 4 ft. + Atlantic Ocean high tide on the east coast and a 2 ft. + high tide on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
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