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Skywatchers say the biggest full moon of the year is due to arrive this weekend, which could obscure a meteor shower.

The annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower is expected to peak this weekend. The mornings on Saturday and Sunday are probably best for meteor-watching, according to EarthSky.org’s Editor Deborah Byrd. But the largest full moon of 2012 — what many are calling a supermoon — will drown these meteors in its glare. Byrd said the best you can hope for is a diminished display, with faint meteors occasionally visible against a bright sky background. Or you might see a bright meteor or two streaking along in the supermoon’s glare, worth the wait.

The moon will officially become full Saturday at 11:35 p.m. And because this month’s full moon coincides with the moon’s perigee — its closest approach to Earth — it will also be the year’s biggest.

The moon will swing in 221,802 miles (356,955 kilometers) from our planet, offering skywatchers a spectacular view of an extra-big, extra-bright moon, nicknamed a supermoon.

And not only does the moon’s perigee coincide with full moon this month, but this perigee will be the nearest to Earth of any this year, as the distance of the moon’s close approach varies by about 3 percent, according to meteorologist Joe Rao, SPACE.com’s skywatching columnist. This happens because the moon’s orbit is not perfectly circular.

This month’s full moon is due to be about 16 percent brighter than average. In contrast, later this year on Nov. 28, the full moon will coincide with apogee, the moon’s farthest approach, offering a particularly small and dim full moon.

Though the unusual appearance of this month’s full moon may be surprising to some, there’s no reason for alarm, scientists warn. The slight distance difference isn’t enough to cause any earthquakes or extreme tidal effects, experts say.

However, the normal tides around the world will be particularly high and low. At perigee, the moon will exert about 42 percent more tidal force than it will during its next apogee two weeks later, Rao said.

The last supermoon occurred in March 2011.

We should just feel lucky that this year’s perigee isn’t coinciding with the earth’s closest approach to the sun, which happens every January. As TIME magazine’s Michael D. Lemonick reported earlier this year, two physicists found that the combination of the moon’s perigee coinciding with Earth’s closest approach to the sun on Jan. 3, 1912, could have been responsible for the Titanic’s sinking that April.

The combined gravity of this positioning led to a cycle of unusually high and low tides, Lemonick explained. In fact, the tides were higher than they’d been in hundreds of years, helping set free icebergs that were usually grounded and send them on a collision course toward the ill-fated ocean liner.

— Staff Writer Dawn M. Kurry can be reached at 910-997-3111, ext. 15, or by email at dkurry@heartlandpublications.com.