By Gene J. Puskar, AP
Famed groundhog prognosticator Punxsutawney Phil has weighed in with his yearly forecast from central Pennsylvania: Six more weeks of winter.
Here's Phil's forecast, as relayed at the annual ceremony: "Many shadows do I see: six more weeks of winter it must be."
The pronouncement brought groans from the thousands of people gathered for the annual event at Gobbler's Knob, the tiny hill in Punxsutawney, which is about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Temperatures were near freezing when Phil emerged from his lair at dawn — unseasonably warm — and are forecast to climb into the mid-40s in a winter that's brought little snow and only a few notably cold days to much of the East.
Today's ceremony, which is also a big tourist draw to the area, is largely ceremonial, the Associated Press reassures us: Phil's prediction is determined ahead of time by the Inner Circle, a group which dons top hats and tuxedos and decides what the groundhog will predict.
The Groundhog Day celebration is rooted in a German superstition that says if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Feb. 2, the Christian holiday of Candlemas, winter will last another six weeks. If no shadow is seen, legend says, spring will come early.
Phil has now seen his shadow 100 times and hasn't seen it just 16 times since 1886, according to the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club's Inner Circle, which runs the event. There are no records for the remaining years.
Here's a dissenting view, to say the least, from WGN meteorologist Tim McGill on the Chicago Weather Center blog"
Should be good fun but still, meteorologists and weathermen everywhere shun the hoopla surrounding February 2nd. We are expected to act as the groundhog's spokesperson and explain the archaic shenanigans of a bunch of old men with large top hats who enjoy pulling a rodent out his hole, thrusting him in the air and making proclamations about whether or not winter will continue. This will be my 26th Groundhog Day as a broadcast meteorologist so I have heard just about every joke there is regarding the day.
McGill adds that experts have found that Phil's forecast is accurate only about 39% of the time.
"Punxsutawney Phil is a punk when it comes to weather forecasting," McGill writes. "In his defense, long range forecasting is tricky at best."
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