 
Every February 2nd crowds gather at Gobbler's Knob, in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. A groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, burrowed inside his heated simulated tree trunk, is about to thrust or be pulled into the limelight at about 7:25 am once again. A pre-dawn fireworks display helps to ignite (hopefully not literally!) the crowd that has gathered in anticipation of Phil's forecast. The awe-inspiring fireworks are set to lively music, which is just what the crowd generally needs on a cold rural Pennsylvania morn. Phil, and others like him, make the most celebrated weather forecast of the year usually around the crack of dawn. Has spring sprung when Phil emerges from his burrow and doesn't see his shadow? Or should he scurry back into his burrow for six more weeks of winter weather if skies are clear and fair? Groundhog Day has its origins in an ancient celebration of a point mid-way between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. Superstition has it that fair weather was seen as forbearance of a stormy and cold second half to winter. The early Christians in Europe established the custom of Candlemas Day, when the clergy would bless candles and people would light them in each window of their homes to ward off the darkness of mid-winter. But the legend of the February 2nd forecast also persisted, as captured in this old English saying:
If Candlemas be fair and bright, The trail of groundhog history actually leads back to Clymer H. Freas, city editor of the Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper. In 1887, he was inspired by a group of local hunters and gourmets who held a groundhog hunt followed by a picnic barbecue of, well, you know. Anyway, Freas thought it so much fun that he wrote up the group as the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club and went on to promote the Punxsutawney Groundhog as the official weather forecaster. As he embellished the story year after year, other newspapers picked it up and soon everyone looked to Punxsutawney Phil for the critical prediction of when spring would return to the nation.
The table below gives a snapshot by year since 1988 whether Phil saw his shadow or not along with the corresponding monthly national average temperature departures for both February and March. The table shows no predictive skill for the groundhog during the most recent years of this analysis. Since 1993, the U.S. national temperature was above normal for seven of the eleven February's. In March, the U.S. national temperature for 2003 was above the long term mean. Temperatures were near or above average across a large part of the country, the only spot that was cooler than normal was northern New England. The February and March 2003 maps below give a pretty good idea on the distribution of temperatures across the United States. It really isn't a "bright" idea to take a measure such as a groundhog's shadow and use it as a predictive meteorological tool for the entire United States. February 2003 ranked as the 39th coolest February in the 1895 to present record. The preliminary nationally averaged temperature was 33.3 degrees F (0.7 degrees C) which was 1.2 degrees F (0.7 degrees C) below the long-term mean. March 2003 ranked as the 34th warmest March in the 1895 to present record. The preliminary nationally averaged temperature was 44.0 degrees F (6.7 degrees C) which was 1.6 degrees F (0.9 degrees C) above the long-term mean.
Interested in doing your own analysis? More complete data are available, on Phil's Historical Predictions and the NCDC Historical Monthly Temperature Data on the Climate at a Glance Web page. The graphs are part of the NCDC Climate Monitoring Branch monthly products .
Punxsutawney can't keep something this big to itself. Other prognosticating rodents are popping up to claim a piece of the action. Most of these furry "forecasters" have a following that includes locals, visitors and the media. The revered groundhogs typically preside over festival events before making their grand appearance to check for shadows on the morning of February 2. Some of these notable contenders have their own WWW pages. Additional Groundhog Web Links
Punxsutawney Phil - Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania There are even more "groundhogs" in the running such as Octorara Orphie of Quarryville, Pennsylvania...competition right next door to Phil, Staten Island Chuck from the Staten Island Zoo, Unadilla who hails from Nebraska, Buckeye Chuck from Ohio, French Creek from West Virginia and the Cajun Groundhog from Louisiana. Ridge Lea Larry is a "stuffed groundhog" from Western New York, and the Tennessee Groundhog of Silver Point, Tennessee is actually someone dressed up like a groundhog on a motorcycle. The film comedy, "Groundhog Day" brought in more than $100 million worldwide, and was the most popular movie in the country for two weeks in 1993. In the movie Bill Murray plays Phil, a grouchy weatherman who hates almost everything. On February 2nd, Phil gets assigned to cover the Punxsutawney Phil groundhog event. On the way back out of town after the big event, traffic is so bad that he can't get out of the town. Phil decides to stay in town overnight but the next morning he wakes up at 6:00 to his alarm clock playing the exact same song from the day before. He listens to the radio broadcast and realizes that they are playing the same program from the day before. Everything he does begins to repeat itself. And somehow, Phil is the only one who remembers anything. The film, and groundhog day on February 2nd, are a way to have a little fun at mid-winter but generally climate records and statistics tell us that winter isn't over. Climatologically speaking the three coldest months of the year are December, January and February. So winter still has a bit to go before spring has sprung. In fact, the winter of 2003-2004 has been quite cold and snowy across portions of the east especially New England with fairly mild weather across the deep south and a good deal of the southwest. Are you interested in the climatic averages or normals? See the monthly data tables in NCDC's Comparative Climatic Data to see what average monthly conditions are like in your area.
Tom Ross
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