Perhaps surprisingly, it is not the first. But the result, which appeared in the journal Weather, Climate, and Society, is unquestionably the most comprehensive statistical analysis yet published of the accuracy of groundhog predictive abilities. It was, admits lead author Alex Ross, a project that was born in the campus bar (“There were many conversations over many beers,” he confesses to National Geographic), and given extra impetus by the boredom of a pandemic. To verify whether groundhogs might be weather soothsayers, a team of researchers from Lakehead University in Ontario, Canada, decided to take a cold, hard look at the evidence. The occasional tongue-in-cheek assertion to the contrary-for example, General Beauregard Lee from Jackson, Georgia, self-reports an accuracy rate of 99 percent-few would make the case for groundhog divination as a substitute for long-range meteorology. Each year, the groundhogs’ “proclamations” are reported with mock seriousness. If its human handler proclaims that the rodent sees its shadow (as Punxsutawney Phil did this year), then six more weeks of winter await if it doesn’t, spring will come early-or so the tradition goes.Įach year, the date’s approach is met with gleeful anticipation and sometimes a rewatching of the movie that made the day globally famous. Every February 2-the halfway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox-a bleary-eyed groundhog is hoisted from its burrow into the daylight in towns across the United States and Canada. The idea behind Groundhog Day is as simple as it is eccentric.
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