The lunar month is 29.53 days long. The largest number of days in February is 29.00 days. This means that even if the first Full Moon of February was at midnight on February 1 of a Leap Year, the very next Full Moon would be 0.5 x 24 = 12 hours after midnight on February 29, or in other words on the first day of March! The last time there was a Full Moon on February 1 was in 1980 at 2:22 UT. This was a Leap Year so the very next Full Moon happened on March 1 at 21:00 UT. The next time we get a Full Moon on February 1 will be in the year 2026 at 22:10, which is not a Leap Year. The Full Moon after that will happen on March 3 at 11:39.
The early Roman Calendar did not have a February; it had 10 months (Martius through December) and a 61 day "winter" which was later split into January and February. When February was created, it was 28 days long and it remained that way until more modern times when the 29th was added in leap years (to account for leap years in the past, Feb 24th was counted twice). It was never long enough to have two full moons (even at 29 days - as explained in the first response).
penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/romancalendar.html no longer exists
Response last updated by gtho4 on May 13 2021.
Oct 05 2014, 9:31 PM
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