Groundhog Day

Punxsutawney Phil woke up today and saw his shadow, which means six more weeks of winter, right?  Well, maybe.  Actually, the groundhog is wrong more often than he is right.  Over the last century, he's only been right about 39% of the time, making his predictive power worse than a coin flip!  So why do we even have Groundhog Day?

February 2nd is based on "cross-quarter" days.  It's a midpoint between the solstices and equinoxes.  The first cross-quarter day of the year happens in the period of February 2-6.  It has many traditional names including Candlemas, Imbolc, St. Brigid's Day, and Setsubun (in Japan).

In the traditional Japanese Lunar Calendar, cross-quarter days mark the beginning of seasons, unlike here, where we base the start dates on solstices and equinoxes.  According to the traditional Lunar Calendar, spring begins on the first cross-quarter day, roughly the beginning of February.  If you go by the solstices and equinoxes, this would be roughly the midpoint of winter.

Long before the groundhog was chosen as the predictor of spring's arrival, Europeans believed that clear weather on Candlemas forebode a long winter.  When German-speaking settlers arrived in the New World, they brought the superstition with them.  While it would be nice to have such a simple way of predicting the weather, unfortunately, Phil's predictions are not grounded in science.

When groundhogs emerge from their burrows at this time of year, they're not really looking for their shadows; they're looking for mates.  The first groundhogs to emerge are typically males.  They take a few days to mark their territories, and then head back underground to hibernate for another month.

One last thing you should know: groundhogs do not enjoy being handled by people.  Punxsatawney Phil has definitely been known to bite his handlers during Groundhog Day observations.

---