Shadow or no shadow? Punxsutawney Phil to make his call today
Courtesy of Associated Press
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Punxsutawney Phil will be getting his moment in the spotlight Friday, but he has competitors in the rodent weather-forecasting game.
There’s Buffalo Bert in Western New York, and he got a jump on Phil by forecasting six more weeks of winter last week. And Buckeye Chuck in Ohio and Shubenacadie Sam in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia are also set to make their predictions about winter’s duration today.
However, Josh Farcus, the treasurer of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, immediately dismisses the forecasts of Bert, Sam and Chuck.
“They’re imposters,” he said Wednesday, as preparations were in full swing near the burrow at Gobbler’s Knob where Phil will emerge today about 7:25 a.m. “We have the only true, weather-predicting groundhog.”
Legend has it that if Phil sees his shadow, we’re in for six more weeks of wintry weather. No shadow? Then we are in for an early spring. Phil will have plenty of company when he makes his appearance. About 30,000 people are expected to converge on Gobbler’s Knob for this year’s Groundhog Day festivities, including Gov. Josh Shapiro. It is, of course, quite a rebound from three years ago when, in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, Phil’s coming-out-of-his-burrow party could only be live-streamed.
Several events are planned around Punxsutawney’s biggest day of the year. A dinner, talent show and concert were on the agenda for Thursday night, and a Groundhog Ball is scheduled for Saturday. All told, Groundhog Day brings in thousands of dollars to the borough every year, so that weather-forecasting groundhog is also quite the cash cow.
But how is it that people ever came to attach so much significance to a humble groundhog? Well, it grew from Pennsylvania Dutch folklore with roots in Germany. Punxsutawney became the epicenter of Groundhog Day thanks to the large number of German emigres who had setted in the area. Punxsutawney’s first Groundhog Day celebration was in 1887 and, in the years after, the community marked the day with picnics, hunting and picnicking.
Does the mild weather Pennsylvania has been having over the last week or so – and the forecast that shows the mild weather is set to continue into February – offer any kind of harbinger on whether Phil will see his shadow? Farcus isn’t sure.
“He’s been really finicky lately,” Farcus said.