This year on February 2nd one of America’s most famous weather-forecasters, Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog, finally made his long awaited appearance at Punxsutawney Pennsylvania to declare 7 more years of winter during this year’s groundhogs day event.
For those unaware, groundhog day is the old Pennsylvanian tradition of predicting the end of a winery by using a groundhog and its innate ability to use its shadow to predict the next few weeks.
The belief goes that if the groundhog leaves its hibernation and sees its own shadow then six more weeks of winter is to come, but if he doesn’t, then spring comes early for all!
The holiday’s roots stretch all the way back to the 1700’s. According to National Weather Service, German settlers brought their old Christian traditions of Candlemas day to the great Americas as they settled into Pennsylvania. Candle mass was the tradition of bringing all your candles to your church to get them blessed during the middle of winter.
The Christians of old believed that if there weren’t any clouds in the sky on candle mass day, then a longer winter was to come, but if the sky was clear then spring would come early.
Eventually , as the Germans integrated the tradition throughout Pennsylvania, they decided to use the telling of a groundhog instead of the clouds for their winter predictions thus, Groundhog day was born.
This year marks Punxsutawney Phil’s 140th prediction of his career, predicting even more winter for the following weeks. This was expected from the majority of his weather-predicting career, he has foretold more winter than spring, only ever foretelling spring a total of 28 as reported by Fox 29.
What is unique to this year’s prediction however, was the general public’s mixed reaction towards Phil’s claim. Due to recent severe weather conditions occurring this Winter, many people were looking forward to an early spring, only to have all their hopes completely shattered with the news of this harsh harsh winter lasting even longer than anybody would have expected.
According to the NOAA, a good portion of Northern and Southern states are currently experiencing a historic level of catastrophe due to the frigid conditions. Luckily for the growing anit-Phil crowd, they have very little to worry about when taking into consideration Punxsutawney Phil’s accuracy when it comes to his profession.
Despite Phil’s 100+ years of experience and perceived expertise in the weather predicting field , Punxsutawney Phil has a surprisingly low success rate with a not-so surprising 35% success rate throughout his professional career as seen in CNN’s article on the subject.
When looking at these facts, it becomes very crystal clear that our eastern friends have nothing to worry about. Despite all this, Punxsutawney Phil is still a beloved mascot for one of the more wholesome American traditions still celebrated today.
