Groundhog Day: ‘Six More Weeks Of Winter,’ Punxsutawney Phil Predicts

Don’t start packing up your scarfs and mittens just yet, if you believe weather predictions from a groundhog.

On Tuesday morning, Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, meaning that we still have six weeks of winter, if you believe the tradition. The groundhog woke up at 7:25 a.m. to make his prediction in front of 16 members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club at Gobbler’s Knob. The century-old celebration looked a little different this year with no crowd in attendance due to the coronavirus pandemic. The event was live streamed.

“Now, when I turn to see, there’s a perfect shadow cast of me. Six more weeks of winter there will be,” announced one of Phil’s handlers at the ceremony.

The first recorded Punxsutawney Groundhog Day celebration was in 1887. According to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, the same Phil has been making his predictions for 135 years. He has lived 15 times longer than a typical groundhog’s lifespan.

According to science, winter officially comes to an end on the March 20 equinox, despite whatever Phil might predict. For the past two years in a row, Phil predicted an early spring by not seeing his shadow. Phil is usually more likely to see his shadow than to not, he’s not seen his shadow only 20 times in the holiday’s history. Statistics showed that Phil’s predictions have only come true about 50% of the time in the past 10 years.

Phil is not the only groundhog in the country to make weather predictions – Ohio, North Carolina, New York, Georgia, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Illinois, Maryland, West Virginia and Michigan all have their own groundhog to see if spring will come early this year.