Much of North America may be digging out from a fresh dump of snow, but according to the psychic groundhogs, spring is just around the corner.
All three of the most closely watched prognosticating rodents -- Ontario's Wiarton Willie, Pennsylvania's Punxsatawney Phil and Nova Scotia's Shubenacadie Sam -- are predicting that spring will come early this year.
According to Groundhog Day folklore, if a hibernating groundhog steps out of his warm burrow on Feb. 2 and doesn't see his shadow, then spring is not far away. If he sees his shadow and tries to head back inside, we should all buckle down for six more weeks of winter.
When the three groundhogs popped out of their burrows early Wednesday morning to take stock of the weather, none saw their shadows. That's a clear sign that spring is on its way.
After emerging, Punxsatawney Phil was quick to update his Facebook page status, writing, "No shadow! Early spring!"
Then he headed over to Twitter to tweet: "No shadow! My prediction: an early spring! Forget science. Ignore common sense. This groundhog would never lie."
Shubenacadie Sam meanwhile emerged into a special enclosure to the sound of bagpipes and the shouts of school children who had come to watch the event.
Willie of Wiarton had to make similar arrangements. The annual Groundhog Day event in Wiarton, Ont. was held inside a tent for the first time in its 55-year history, as wind whipped around the snow, creating near white-out conditions.
This year, a new groundhog in New Brunswick joined the ranks of furry weather forecasters: Oromocto Ollie, who lives at Canadian Forces Base Gagetown.
Ollie seemed indifferent to the gathering, sleeping through most of the Groundhog Day ceremony. But in the end, he too indicated an early spring.
There are actually dozens of semi-famous woodchucks who are called on annually to make mid-winter predictions. But though there may be imitators, Punxsutawney Phil is North America's original, having been looking for shadow since 1886.
This year Phil markedg his 125th year of prognosticating – and of life, or so the legend goes.
It's not clear how the tradition started, but the origins of Groundhog Day date back to the Germans who settled in Pennsylvania. Those settlers believed that badgers and hedgehogs awakened from their hibernation on the Feb. 2 holiday called Candlemas could provide clues about the weather.
Phil was chosen as a weather forecaster in 1886 by the editor of the Punxsutawney Spirit, Clymer Freas, an avid groundhog hunter. He was part of "The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club" and decided that a groundhog named Phil was the one and only weather prognosticating groundhog.
He ran a headline in his paper that read: "Today is groundhog day and up to the time of going to press the beast has not seen its shadow." Other newspapers took up the sotry the next year and a media-fuelled tradition was born.
While Groundhog Day has turned into a huge celebration in Punxsutawney, Pa., according to records kept by the National Climatic Data Center in the U.S., Phil is not exactly the most accurate of prognosticators: his predictions have been correct just 39 per cent of the time.
But Phil would disagree; in fact, he boasts a 100 per cent accuracy rate. After all, he'll tell you, his prediction is not fixed on any particular location, so it's got to be winter somewhere six weeks from now.
