The groundhogs agree it will be an early spring. That’s the prediction delivered today by three rodent prognosticators in Pennsylvania and Georgia.
The most famous of them, Punxsutawney Phil, failed to see his shadow during the annual groundhog ceremony at Gobbler’s Knob.
Thousands came out to watch him make his prediction early Friday morning, Feb. 2.
According to records dating back to 1887, Phil has predicted winter more than 100 times.
Georgia groundhogs
Farther south, at the Dauset Trails Nature Center in Jackson this morning, Georgia’s General Beauregard Lee predicted an early spring for the fifth year running.
Gen. Lee emerged from a miniature antebellum mansion festooned with garlands of corn, pork sausage and Waffle House hash browns and did not see his shadow.
The 16-pound groundhog is the pride of Butts County: his 60%+ accuracy record is bushels better than Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil’s 30%.
Since 1982, Beauregard Lee has predicted an early spring every year but three: in 2013, 2018 and 2019.
And in Northeast Georgia’s White County, Yonah, the groundhog at North Georgia Wildlife Park, reluctantly made an appearance.
Park co-owner Tom Bennett hosted a live stream early Friday morning that didn’t go quite as planned. Yonah refused to emerge from his wooden stump burrow.
After ten minutes of waiting, the livestream cut off and a second stream started shortly after, showing Bennett with Yonah in his arms saying, “He didn’t see his shadow.”
According to folklore, if a groundhog sees its shadow, that means there will be six more weeks of winter.
The first Groundhog Day celebration was held on Feb. 2, 1877, at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. However, the tradition of using rodents to predict the weather dates back much earlier and was brought to the U.S. by German immigrants.
GPB News and WTAE Pittsburgh contributed to this report
