2013 Chinese zodiac sign: Water Snake

Chinese year 2013 begins on Sunday, February 10, 2013, and ends on Thursday, January 30, 2014, the day before the Year of the Wood Horse begins. It has 355 days, or 12 lunar months: each month starts on a new moon, so it is 29 or 30 days long. The next leap year, with a thirteenth month, comes in 2014.

The year opens with the new moon on Sunday, February 10, 2013 at 2:20 a.m. ET, which is 3:20 p.m. China Standard Time, so the date is the same in New York and in Beijing.

The Lantern Festival, which closes the New Year celebrations, comes on the fifteenth day of the first month, so on Sunday, February 24, 2013. The year's first full moon falls on Monday, February 25, 2013 at 3:26 p.m. ET.

It is year 30 of the sixty-year cycle that began in 1984 with the Wood Rat. In Chinese this year is called 癸巳 (guǐsì): the heavenly stem 癸 gives the element and the earthly branch 巳 the animal.

In Ba Zi astrology, the Four Pillars of Destiny, the year 2013 begins not at the lunar New Year but at the moment of lìchūn (立春, “start of spring”), when the Sun reaches 315° of ecliptic longitude: on Sunday, February 3, 2013 at 11:13 a.m. Eastern Time. That is 7 days before Chinese New Year, so anyone born between that moment and February 9 still has the Water Dragon sign in the lunar calendar but already the Water Snake sign in Ba Zi.

This page and the calculator give your sign by the lunar calendar.

The Snake is the sign of wisdom and intuition. It observes quietly, analyzes and acts only once it understands the situation well, and then it is rarely wrong.

Intuition, flexibility and a gift for persuasion. Water softens a sign and teaches it to go with the flow.

The Water element covers two years in a row, 2012 (yang) and 2013 (yin), and comes back every ten years: before that in 2002–2003, next in 2022–2023.

The Water Snake sees more than others do. Water deepens its insight and its ability to read people, so it is rarely fooled, and it is good with money too. It is calm, wise and thoughtful. Still, it lets very few people close, and trust doesn't come easily.

In 2026, people born in 2013 turn 13 years old. The Year of the Fire Horse is running now, which tradition counts as a year with no special tie for the Snake. People born in 2013 reach their next běnmìngnián, the year of their own sign, in 2037, when they turn 24 years old.

The Snake comes back every 12 years, each time with a different element. The exact combination of 2013, the Water Snake, returns every 60 years: in 1953, 2013 and 2073.