groundhog day! That’s what Punxsutawney Phil predicts
Great! According to Punxsutawney Phil, winter is still six weeks away!
February 2nd is Groundhog Day!
As every February 2nd, woodchucks were lured out of their holes in the US and Canada. When the sun shines, the animal is startled and quickly runs back into its burrow. This is the winter forecast. The oldest known tradition of this kind comes from Punxsutawney in Pennsylvania, USA. A marmot is said to have made the prediction for the first time in 1887.
Almost everyone knows the film “Groundhog Day”. When Phil Connors (Bill Murray) arrives, he has no idea that Groundhog Day will change his life. And his bad mood…
“And daily greets the groundhog”
If you want to take a closer look at the ceremony, you have to watch a classic: “Groundhog Day” from 1993 with an incredibly bad-tempered, grandiose Bill Murray. As weather forecaster Phil Connors, he is supposed to report on Groundhog Day, which he doesn’t feel like doing at all. The fact that he and his team have to spend the night in the small town because of a snow storm doesn’t exactly improve his mood. And then it comes: The day repeats itself. Again and again and again…
The tradition is said to go back to German settlers who immigrated to the United States. An old farmer’s rule says that on this day it is actually decided whether it will stay cold longer or whether spring will come soon – a so-called Lostag. These are certain days in the farming year, on which it was previously decided, for example, when to start sowing.
It had previously snowed heavily in large parts of the northeastern United States. Now there is only one hope: the animal, which weighs around ten kilos, was wrong. Phil is often wrong. US climate researchers have calculated that his hit rate has been around 40 percent in recent years.