Groundhog Day: More winter or early spring?

Groundhog Day: More winter or early spring?

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Legend has it that if Punxsutawney Phil marmot sees his shadow, we will have six more winter weeks. Otherwise, spring will come sooner.

At the moment, Groundhog Day forecast in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, is snow. A lot of that. The forecast for Tuesday morning, while Phil is making his prediction, points to snowfall and temperatures in the mid-20s. of adolescence.

Even though it isn’t snowing much during Phil’s forecast on television, there will be at least 4-6 inches of fresh powder in the soil of a weekend winter storm that will make its way through the Northeast from Sunday to Tuesday.

The celebration, which has lasted more than a century, will be a little different this year. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, there will be no crowd or guests present, but you can watch the ceremony over the internet via live broadcast.

Forecasts in the past

Phil is not new to the prediction game. The ceremony has been taking place since 1887.

Scientifically speaking, winter will officially end at the equinox on March 20, regardless of what Phil predicts. But Mother Nature doesn’t always follow the schedule.

In fact, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota have their snowiest time of year after Groundhog Day.

For the past two consecutive years, Phil has not seen his shadow, predicting an early spring.

In the past, Phil was much more likely to see his shadow than not. He has seen his shadow 104 times, but he has not seen it only 20 times. Statistically speaking, Phil got his predictions right about 50% of the time in the past 10 years.

Phil has many friends

Phil is not alone in his prognostic skills. In fact, there are many others like him. States like Ohio, North Carolina, New York, Georgia, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Illinois, Maryland, West Virginia and Michigan have their own groundhog to use in predictions.

Some of the more colorful names include Pierre C. Shadeaux of Louisiana, General Beauregard Lee of Georgia and Staten Island Chuck of New York, just to name a few.

There is also Unadilla Bill, from Nebraska, which has one of the highest accuracy ratings on the marmot market.

This means that if you don’t like Phil’s prediction, it’s likely that one of the other woodchucks will predict something you Does to like.

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