Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and is predicting six more weeks of wintry weather, his top-hatted handlers announced Sunday from Gobbler’s Knob in western Pennsylvania.
A massive crowd was on hand to hear the woodchuck’s weather forecast, an annual ritual with roots in European agricultural life that has boomed in public interest since Bill Murray’s 1993 movie, “Groundhog Day.”
The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club says when Phil is deemed to have not seen his shadow, that is said to usher in an early spring. When he does see it, there will be six more weeks of winter.
What that means can be subjective.
Phil has predicted a longer winter far more often than an early spring and one effort to track his accuracy concluded he was right less than half the time. In Maine, it’s too cold for groundhogs to emerge on Feb. 2, according to a wildlife biologist.
Tom Dunkel, president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, says there are two types of people who make the trek to Gobbler’s Knob: the faithful seeking to validate their beliefs and the doubters who want to confirm their skepticism.
Phil communicates his forecast through “Groundhog-ese” with the help of a special cane that Dunkel has inherited as the club’s leader. It’s not as if he speaks in English words.
“He’ll like wink, he’ll purr, he’ll chatter, he’ll — you know — nod,” Dunkel said.
Attendance is free but it costs $5 to take a bus and avoid a 1 mile (1.6 kilometer) trek from the middle of town to the stage where the prediction is made, some 80 miles (123 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh. The need for so many buses is why the local schools, where the sports mascot is the Chucks, close when Groundhog Day falls on a weekday.
Jon Lovitch was in Punxsutawney with family members for the event. The self-employed gingerbread artist from New York has attended Groundhog Day for 33 years.
“I like the cold, you know, and this is probably the best and biggest midwinter party in the entire world,” Lovitch said. “And it’s just a really good time.”
Keith Post, his wife and a friend have watched the “Groundhog Day” movie in each of the past five years and decided this was the time to make the trip from Ohio to witness the event.
“We booked rooms almost a year in advance and we’re here,” Post said. “We’re doing it.”
A new welcome center opened four years ago and the club is working on an elaborate second living space for Phil and family so they can split time between Gobbler’s Knob and Phil’s longtime home at the town library. The club also is putting up large video screens and more powerful speakers this year to help attendees in the back of the crowd follow the proceedings.
“It’s a holiday where you don’t really owe anyone anything,” said A.J. Dereume, who among the club’s 15-member inner circle serves as Phil’s handler. “You’re grasping onto the belief, you know, in something that’s just fun to believe in.”
Jackie Handley agreed a year ago to visit Punxsutawney for the first time to help a friend check off an item on their bucket list. They were bracing for subfreezing temperatures.
“I think it’s going to be really fun,” said Handley, who lives in Falls Church, Virginia. “It’s once in a lifetime — we’re probably not going to come back. And we have tons of warm clothes.”
Phil has a wife, Punxsutawney Phyllis, and two pups born this spring, Shadow and Sunny, although his family won’t join him on stage for the big event. The groundhog family eats fruits and vegetables, get daily visits from Dereume and see a veterinarian at least once a year.
The club’s lore is that Phil is the same woodchuck who has been issuing weather forecasts for the past century, thanks to an “elixir of life” that keeps him immortal.
“There’s only one Phil, and it’s not something that can be handed down,” Dunkel said. “Just like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, there’s only one.”
Groundhog Day celebrations, formal and informal, are being held in many Pennsylvania towns and elsewhere on Sunday. There have been Groundhog Day events in at least 28 U.S. states and Canadian provinces.
