February is the shortest month of the year and the only one whose length changes. In Israel it is the month in which winter starts to waver: the rain is still falling and the nights are still cold, but the almond trees are already in blossom and anemones have turned the fields of the north and the western Negev red. On the Hebrew calendar it usually covers Shevat and the opening of Adar, and in most years it carries Tu BiShvat.
The month of purification, and why the extra day lands in it
February takes its name from februa, the Latin word for the instruments of purification and, by extension, for the rites of cleansing held in the middle of this month in Rome. In the Roman world it was a month of clearing up: purifying, atoning and settling accounts before the year began again.
Which also explains its best-known oddity. In the old Roman calendar, which opened in March, February was the last month, so every correction between the moon's year and the sun's got shoved into it. The Romans used to jam a short intercalary month in after 23 February, and later, in Julius Caesar's reform, that patch was replaced by a single day added once every four years. The 29th of February is therefore a survival of an older order: a day tacked onto the end of the year, exactly like the Adar II that the Hebrew calendar inserts. One problem, two solutions.
February around the world
The date most associated with February is Valentine's Day on the fourteenth, named for a Christian martyr but landing precisely on the days when Rome held its mid-month rites of purification and fertility. Historians argue about whether the two are actually connected; the date, at any rate, survived.
Carnival also falls in February in most years: a week of parades, masks and costumes in Rio, Venice and Cologne, immediately before the Christian fast of Lent begins. Anyone who knows Purim will recognise a neighbour here: two spring festivals of costume and reversal, sitting close together in the calendar and descending from entirely separate sources.
Chinese New Year lands in February in many years, bringing with it the largest single holiday migration on earth. And on the second of the month Europe and the Americas mark Candlemas, whose folk descendant in the United States is Groundhog Day: the morning on which, by tradition, a small animal forecasts how much winter is left.
What February weather is like in Israel
February is still full winter, but a winter beginning to come apart. Tel Aviv typically runs between about 10°C and 19°C, Jerusalem between roughly 6°C and 13°C, and Eilat can already reach 24°C. The rain keeps coming, though less of it than in January, and the last and heaviest storms of the season usually fall in this month.
It is also when the sea is at its coldest (around 17°C, sometimes less) because the water lags about a month behind the land.
And yet February is the month in which the landscape turns to spring before the weather does. Almond trees flower the length of the country, anemones colour the western Negev, and on the bright days between storms you can be outside in short sleeves for a few hours at a time.
Jewish dates that fall in February
February usually spans Shevat and the start of Adar. On the Hebrew calendar it is a thin month, but not an empty one:
- Tu BiShvat: the new year for trees, the date from which a fresh year is counted for fruit trees. It falls between mid-January and mid-February, and in most years it lands here, just as the almond comes into blossom.
- Rosh Chodesh Adar: arrives at the end of February or the start of March, opening the stretch of the year that tradition marks with rising joy. In a leap year it is Adar I that begins here, and the fourteenth of that month is Purim Katan: a day with no scroll reading and no obligations, kept with a little cheer.
- Purim: almost always falls in March, but in years when Adar comes early it can land as soon as 24 February.
Every date of the year in one table: the annual holidays calendar.
Common questions about February
When is Rosh Chodesh in February?
February normally contains one Hebrew new moon, that of Adar, falling near the end of the month; some years it is Rosh Chodesh Shevat instead, and either can run for two days. It is tied to the moon, not to 1 February, so it moves every year; the grid above shows exactly where it lands. This year: Rosh Chodesh Adar I: 9-10/2/35.
How many days are in February?
Twenty-eight in most years and twenty-nine in a leap year, once every four years, except for years divisible by 100 that are not divisible by 400. The year 2000 was a leap year; 1900 was not.
Which Hebrew months does February cover?
Usually Shevat and the beginning of Adar. Every cell in the grid above carries both the civil and the Hebrew date.
Are there any Jewish holidays in February?
There is no festival day of rest. Most years Tu BiShvat falls in it, and rarely Purim in its final days.
How does February relate to a Hebrew leap year?
Same principle, different fix. The civil calendar adds one day to February every four years; the Hebrew calendar adds a whole month, Adar I, seven times in every nineteen. Both are reconciling the year they count in against the sun.
Printing a February calendar
The grid at the top of this page shows February whole (twenty-eight days, or twenty-nine in a leap year) with the civil date and the matching Hebrew date in every cell, alongside the Sabbaths and their Torah portions and any festival falling in the month. The button above the grid prints it to a single page, portrait or landscape.
- Every date of the year with its own page: the annual holidays calendar
- The full printable year: home page
- For a Hebrew-month view, in which Shevat and Adar each appear whole: Hebrew month calendar