Today is Shrove Tuesday, Chinese New Year and the start of Ramadan.
How unusual is that?
Very unusual, obviously.
But also perhaps not ridiculously improbable because all three special days are connected to the moon.
And if a new moon crops up in mid-February it's going to be a possibility.
Let's start with Chinese New Year.
The Chinesecalendar follows these two basic rules:
• Months start on the day of a new moon (Beijing time).
• The 11th month always contains the winter solstice.
The 12th month thus starts on the first new moon after the winter solstice.
That's the last month of the year.
So Chinese New Year is always the second new moon after the winter solstice.
This can be any date between 21st January and 20th February.
And that's the easy one.
This year
The winter solstice fell on 21st December 2025.
The new moon on 20th December didn't count.
The first new moon after the winter solstice was on 19th January 2026.
The second new moon after the winter solstice is on 17th February 2026.
Which is today - Kung hei fat choi!
OK, on to pancakes.
Shrove Tuesday is the day before Lent, i.e. the day before Ash Wednesday.
It always occurs 47 days before Easter.
The gap is six weeks and five days, always from a Tuesday to a Sunday.
Easter Day can fall anywhere between 22nd March and 25th April.
So Shrove Tuesday can be any date between 3rd February and 9th March.
Chinese New Year and Shrove Tuesday can thus only overlap in the period 3rd February to 20th February.
i.e. you need a late Chinese New Year and an early Easter.
Specifically Easter has to fall between 22nd March and 8th April.
If Easter is 9th April or later then Shrove Tuesday and Chinese New Year don't mix.
But if Easter is before 9th April, it's not unlikely they overlap.
That's because Chinese New Year is the day of a new moon, and Easter is the Sunday after a full moon.
That gap from new moon to full moon is 1½ lunar months, or 44 days.
And if the 47th day happens to be a Sunday that's when the coincidence happens.
This year
🌑New 17th Feb → 🌕Full 3rd Mar → 🌑New 19th Mar → 🌕Full 2nd Apr
Thursday 2nd April is the first full moon after the spring equinox.
The next Sunday is Sunday 5th April, which is Easter Day.
And 47 days before that is Tuesday 17th February, which is both Shrove Tuesday and a new moon.
I've checked all the years in the 20th and 21st centuries.
And these are all the years when Chinese New Year coincides with Shrove Tuesday.
That's 22 years out of 200, or 11% of the time.
It may seem unfamiliar because it last happened way back in 2002.
But it's due to happen again very soon, in 2029.
There's often only a three year gap between Chinese New Years also being Shrove Tuesday.
And roughly speaking they coincide one year in ten.
Which brings us to the first day of Ramadan.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar.
Like Chinese New Year, it starts with a new moon.
However it's not always in winter, it moves repeatedly through the seasons.
That's because Islamic years always contains 12 lunar months, with no leap days or leap months to get things back in sync.
They're always 354 or 355 days long, i.e. about 11 days shorter than our calendar year.
Last year: 🌑New Moon 28th February
This year: 🌑New Moon 17th February
Next year: 🌑New Moon 6th February
At the moment Ramadan's in February but it hits January in 2028 and December in 2030.
By 2040 it's retreated to September and by 2050 it's in May.
Only in 2058 does it again return to February and the period we're interested in.
A February Ramadan comes around only every 32 years or so.
Ramadan and Chinese New Year are both triggered by a new moon, remember.
So if Ramadan starts in the period 21st January to 20th February then it also coincides with Chinese New Year.
This happened in 1929/1930, then again in 1961/1962/1963, then again in 1994/1995.
It's happening in 2026 and will again in 2027 and 2028.
And it'll next happen in 2059/2060/2061 and 2091/2092/2093.
But for Ramadan, Chinese New Year AND Shrove Tuesday to coincide the window is much smaller.
This time we need a full moon in the period 3rd February to 20th February.
That rules out 1929, 1963, 1995, 2028, 2060, 2061 and 2093.
But we also need that full moon to be on a Tuesday.
And it turns out 2026 is the only year that happens, at least in the 20th or 21st centuries.
It's not going to happen again until 2124.
You'll not be around the next time Shrove Tuesday is Chinese New Year and the first day of Ramadan.
But...
Ramadan is of course more complicated than that.
The month doesn't start at the new moon, it starts when that new moon is sighted.
And that brings all sorts of observational unpredictability into all this.
If you follow the Islamic calendar, observational unpredictability is a monthly fact of life.
No Islamic astronomer is going to spot the new moon today, it's both too thin and too close to the Sun.
They might spot it tomorrow, in which case Ramadan starts on Wednesday.
Or they might spot it the day after, in which case Ramadan starts on Thursday.
Every single new month in the Islamic calendar is essentially unpredictable until the night before.
It means today isn't the first day of Ramadan, sorry, just the full moon that triggers it.
And if Ramadan is always after the date of the full moon, it can never coincide with Chinese New Year.
Sorry, I appear to have wasted your time here.
Also I've failed to take into account the effect of time zones.
The Chinese Calendar assumes a prime meridian of 120°E, aligning with Beijing.
But Ramadan is based on local lunar observations, which here means 0°.
These are 8 hours apart, so a new moon after midnight in China is before midnight here, i.e. one day earlier.
It doesn't affect 2026, but in 2030 the key new moon is on 3rd February in China but 2nd February in Europe.
Also the date of Easter isn't based on the real full moon but an ecclesiastical full moon devised in the 4th century.
The whole thing is a mess, and trying to define simple rules and patterns doubly so.
It's all overly muddy so perhaps best not try.
But it IS true that Shrove Tuesday and Chinese New Year coincide this year.
And it's highly likely that the first day of Ramadan will coincide with Ash Wednesday instead.
Two celebrations take place today and two fasts start tomorrow.
And maybe those are the most appropriate coincidences of all.
