Punxsutawney Phil the groundhog at his Groundhog Day ceremony in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, February 2018

Punxsutawney Phil: The Groundhog That's Been Predicting Weather Since 1887

Every February 2nd, before sunrise, a group of men in top hats and tuxedos gather around a tree stump on a hill in western Pennsylvania and wait for a groundhog to appear. The groundhog's name is Punxsutawney Phil. According to tradition, if Phil sees his shadow when he emerges, there will be six more weeks of winter. If the sky is overcast and he casts no shadow, spring comes early. Cameras from around the world show up. The President sometimes calls in. It has been going on since 1887.

Phil is the most famous groundhog in North America and possibly one of the most famous animals in the world. He is also, statistically speaking, not very good at predicting weather.

Where the Tradition Comes From

Groundhog Day has European roots. German immigrants settling in Pennsylvania brought with them the Candlemas tradition, a Christian feast day on February 2nd in which weather on that day was said to predict the remaining length of winter. The original European version used hedgehogs as the forecast animal. When German settlers arrived in Pennsylvania, they found no hedgehogs, but plenty of groundhogs. The substitution stuck.

According to History.com, the first official Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney was held on February 2, 1887. A local newspaper editor named Clymer Freas is credited with establishing the tradition and organizing the first celebration at Gobbler's Knob, a wooded hill about two miles outside town. The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club has run the event every year since, with the exception of a few years during World War One and World War Two.

How Phil Has Performed

The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club claims Phil has been delivering forecasts since 1887, implying a single groundhog has lived for over 130 years. The official explanation is that Phil drinks a sip of Groundhog Punch each summer, an elixir that reportedly adds seven years to his life. Real groundhog lifespans are two to three years in the wild and up to six years in captivity.

The accuracy of Phil's predictions is well documented and not flattering. NOAA has tracked Phil's forecast against actual weather data and found an overall accuracy rate of approximately 39 percent across all years on record. Over the past decade, the accuracy drops closer to 30 percent. A coin flip gives you 50 percent. Phil has predicted a longer winter, the shadow outcome, in roughly 109 of the approximately 130 forecasts on record, compared to only about 21 early spring predictions. The Inner Circle, the tuxedoed men who interpret Phil's emerging behavior and speak on his behalf, have never revised their track record.

The Spectacle Around the Forecast

None of this has diminished the event's popularity. Punxsutawney attracts tens of thousands of visitors each February 2nd. Phil appeared on NBC's Today Show as early as 1960. He visited the White House in 1986. The 1993 film Groundhog Day, starring Bill Murray and filmed in Woodstock, Illinois rather than Pennsylvania, made the concept globally recognizable and significantly increased tourism to Punxsutawney for years afterward.

The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club maintains that Phil is kept in a comfortable, climate-controlled enclosure at the Punxsutawney library the rest of the year, where he and his companion groundhog receive routine veterinary care. Born Free USA and other animal welfare organizations have periodically raised concerns about using wild animals in public events of this kind, and have suggested replacing Phil with a robotic or digital groundhog.

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Sources

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