Groundhog Day in the US: Woodchuck Phil predicts another six weeks of winter | Abroad

Groundhog Day takes place on February 2 each year in Punxustawney, a small town northeast of Pittsburgh in the state of Philadelphia. Thousands of spectators gathered there at dawn to watch Phil crawl out of his stump for his annual weather forecast.

“I see shadow on my stage and it doesn’t matter how you measure it: it will be winter for another six weeks,” read Phil’s official ‘translator’. The words were met with cheers and applause from the audience.

If the rodent sees its shadow on Groundhog Day, according to folklore, it will be cold and stormy for another six weeks. If it is cloudy and no shadow appears, then the beginning of spring is near.

Groundhog Day was first celebrated in 1887. Scientists believe the custom dates back to a fusion of Native American and German immigrant legends. A tribe of Indians living in Punxsutawney believed that their ancestors were woodchucks. The Christian immigrants, on the other hand, brought their own ‘wisdom’: a woodchuck awakens on February 2, Candlemas, out of hibernation, is startled when he sees his own shadow and then quickly retreats to his hole to sleep for a few more weeks .

Scientifically speaking, winter officially ends on March 20, regardless of Phil’s prediction. But Mother Nature doesn’t always stick to the schedule, and neither does Phil.

Phil’s track record isn’t perfect, though. “On average, Phil has been right 40 percent of the time over the past 10 years,” according to the National Centers for Environmental Information, a division of the US Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency NOAA. But that doesn’t diminish Phil’s popularity. The annual event, which was the centerpiece of the 1993 film classic ‘Groundhog Day’ starring Bill Murray, attracts thousands of visitors from around the world.