In the weather biz, doing as many school visits and talks as I do, I have a lot of weather folklore questions thrown at me. Questions about the wooly bear caterpillar, halos around the sun and moon, the January Thaw, Indian Summer, and now it’s Groundhog Day time!
Tuesday February 2nd, all heck is breaking loose in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania (80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh) as a raucous crowd of 20,000 – 40,000 converge on Gobbler’s Knob to see if Phil sees his shadow or not. It’s a regular Woodstock but without the mud (and presumably most folks are wearing clothes). Matter of fact, his “handlers” wear tuxedos. Legend has it that if Phil emerges from his burrow and DOES see his shadow, he gets scared and runs back in. This means another six weeks of winter! But, if Phil emerges and does NOT see his shadow, he then hangs out for awhile and this means the end of winter is close at hand. If seeing his shadow or not isn’t enough, supposedly Phil whispers his prognostication to the head handler.
This year, Phil apparently did see his shadow, meaning six more weeks of winter according to the local legend.
This is the “Don’t get me started" part!
If you’ve ever seen this on TV, you know how much of a media circus this event is. Hundreds of cameras and thousands of watts of lighting for television, newspapers and groundhog enthusiasts worldwide. At sunrise on February 2nd, Phil is “hauled out”, that’s right, I said hauled out of his carrier or den and set on a large table that resembles a tree stump. With the tree stump lit up like Times Square, is it any wonder Phil sees his shadow most of the time? Then there are those rare times when Phil does not see his shadow indicating an early spring. Think about that, would you?
February 2nd in Central New York and Phil is telling us spring is right around the corner? Come on! I think we all know that if it’s the beginning of February, around these parts the snow and cold of winter are far from over. As far as I’m concerned, if its only February 2nd in Central New York, I don’t care if Punxsutawney Phil comes out of his burrow in swim trunks and sunglasses, we still have six more weeks of winter ahead!
BACKGROUND OF GROUNDHOG DAY AND PHIL’S ACCURACY
The groundhog or woodchuck is the only mammal to have a day named in his honor. Just as with the January Thaw or Indian Summer, it’s tough to nail down the real origin of how this whole Groundhog Day thing got started. Some theorize that 1,000 years ago, when the spring equinox fell closer to March 16 instead of the 21st or 22nd (Yes I know, but that’s a story for another time). Someone randomly figured backwards six weeks from March 16th and chose that as a day to “watch hibernating creatures and see if they emerge or not”. Much of this was started by German immigrants known as the Pennsylvania Dutch who brought this tradition to the U.S. about 150+ years ago. The Germans called this Candlemas Day (not to be confused with Christmas Day). Since that time this tradition has evolved and grown across the U.S. and Phil has become this country’s’ most famous groundhog.
Now let’s talk accuracy. The National Climatic Data Center did a study of Phil’s accuracy over the past 30 to 40 years, and they came up with an accuracy of 37%.
Frankly, flipping a coin is more accurate, typically landing on either heads or tails about 50% of the time, on average.
BUT WAIT - PHIL HAS COMPETITION:
Yes he does. There are actually several dozen rodents, groundhogs, woodchucks spread out across North America who do the same thing as Phil.
Just a few of the most notable are:
Dunkirk Dave in Dunkirk, New York
General Beauregard Lee in Atlanta, Georgia
Jimmy the Groundhog in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
Wiarton Wlllie in Wiarton, Ontario Canada
Sir Walter Raleigh in North Carolina
Spanish Joe in Ontario, Canada
Of course, if you have a problem with Groundhog Day, at least we can always depend on the Old Farmer’s Almanac. Don’t get me started on that!
