Groundhog Day offers 61% chance of being pointless
It’s Groundhog Day. For those of us in cooler climates, this gets a lot of attention. Personally, I’m not a fan, but I won’t let that get between you and the facts. So, he says with a fake cheer that could rival any TV weatherman, what’s up with this crazy Groundhog Day tradition?
The gist of it is that a groundhog, an animal that sleeps all winter, is supposed to poke it’s head out the door and from whether or not it sees its own shadow, we can determine that warm weather is on the way… or not. First of all, a groundhogs have never shown any particular meteorological inclinations… they were just the convenient hibernating mammal of choice. Now even I would make an effort to tune in the weather report for “Grizzly Bear Day”.
This whole thing is based on the fact that February 2nd falls precisely in the middle between Winter Solstice (first day of winter) and Vernal Equinox (first day of spring). An ancient religious ceremony that came to America with German settlers is responsible for the weather predicting element.
Called Candlemas, it was believed that the weather on this day would predict the rest of winter. If it was nice and warm, then it was a calm between winter storms, and spring would be late. If today has crummy weather, then the idea is that winter will get tired without a break, and spring arrives early.
That directly translates to Groundhog day as a warm sunny day means that Punxsutawney Phil (America’s foremost weatherhog) will cast a strong shadow that’s hard to miss… thus “early spring”. With poor weather, the cold dreary overcast of Pennsylvania means no shadow, and more winter. Basically, the groundhog here serves no more useful purpose than that of a stick.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole thing is that in a 50/50 situation Phil’s prediction record of the last century is quite poor at 39% accuracy. That suggests he’s actually trying to be wrong. That’s what you get for trusting a groundhog.
Wiarton Willie never makes a mistake. Punxsutawney Phil is his poor American cousin.