Happy Groundhog Day! This morning thousands of people gathered at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to watch the famous groundhog deliver his highly anticipated forecast. Superstition states a sunny sky on February 2 would mean a cold and stormy remainder of winter, while a cloudy sky means a quicker warm-up. Phil emerged from his burrow around 7:25am and did not see his shadow, signaling an early spring for us all…
CNN had a great article on the history of Groundhog Day. And how the groundhog’s predictions are usually wrong…
In the past decade, Phil has predicted a longer winter seven times and an early spring three times. He was right about 40% of the time, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which says the groundhog shows no predictive skill. “You’re better off trying to decide what the rest of February and March will look like by flipping a coin,” said CNN meteorologist Judson Jones. But the people who know Phil best don’t exactly see it that way. A.J. Dereume, one of the groundhog’s handlers, insists Phil’s predictions have a 100% accuracy rate — they just get lost in translation.
According to lore, the president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club is the only person who can interpret Phil’s message. Every year, the groundhog sits on his tree stump and conveys his prediction to the club president, who then directs the vice president to read from a scroll that corresponds with the year’s forecast. “Phil is the one deciding whether or not he’s seen the shadow,” Dereume says. “It’s not up to us. All we do is deliver his message.” Either way, human forecasters don’t mind having the alternate prediction out there in case their own projections go askew. “People like to have something to blame for the weather, and the groundhog is the perfect thing to blame,” Jones said. “It’s better than blaming your meteorologist.”
I didn’t realize so many people turned out to see the groundhog. And when did the groundhog day tradition turn to the groundhog picking a scroll? I thought it all was determined by his shadow. It’s such a funny tradition. 😀🦔❤️
Also funny, was the Jeep Groundhog Day commercial starring Bill Murray during the Superb Owl? It was in one of my top three commercials from this year’s Big Game.
T+G 