Today is Groundhog Day, and if you wake up tomorrow morning with everything feeling the same as today, then blame it on Punxsutawney Phil. The groundhog saw his shadow, which means six more weeks of winter for us humans.
On the hill known as “Gobbler’s Knob,” made famous by the hit Bill Murray comedy “Groundhog Day,” leaders of the Groundhog Club pulled Phil from his resting place where he looked for his shadow. Communicating in “groundhogese,” Phil delivered the bad news: six more weeks of gloomy winter.
Going all the way back to 1887, the groundhog has seen his shadow 103 times and not seen it 18 times. No record exists for the other 10 times in the late 19th century. The good news, however, is that the groundhog is typically wrong, though his handlers get around this fact by saying Phil’s predictions are not necessarily geographically specific.
“There is no predictive skill for the groundhog during the most recent years of the analysis,” according to a report released this week by NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina.
Since 1988, the groundhog has predicted the weather correctly 14 times and incorrectly 16 times, including last year, according to USA Today.
“The fuzzy rodent saw his shadow, so there should have been six more weeks of winter,” reports the outlet. “But both February and March ended up warmer than average across the nation, NOAA said. February 2017 was the second-warmest February on record.”
Believe it or not, Groundhog Day actually has Christian roots, stemming from the European holiday of Candlemas, or the Christian “festival of lights” on February 2. It originated with the Germans, who built the tradition upon “looking to the hedgehog as a predictor of weather, the legend goes, and German settlers in Pennsylvania later switched to the groundhog,” reports USA Today.
Prepare to buckle down inside that winter coat and scarf for six more weeks.