Punxsutawney, PA is only about 85 miles from Pittsburgh, home of the Steelers who beat the Arizona Cardinals 27-23 in yesterday’s Superbowl.
The Superbowl, in case you don’t already know, is like the FA Cup on steriods. Superbowl day is the top “at-home” party event of the year in the USA, ahead of New Year’s Eve and is second only to Thanksgiving for food consumption. Nothing escapes Superbowl treatment, including last Friday’s school lunch options which included “football-shaped chicken nuggets”.
Anyway, back to Punxsutawney: Phil is Punxsutawney’s most famous resident. Phil is a groundhog, otherwise known as a woodchuck (“How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”), land beaver or whistlepig. According to www.groundhog.com (the offical Punxsutawney Groundhog Day website) Phil is at least 123 years old but like Fidel Castro (who must be of a similar age now) how are we to know its really still him?
Today at about 7:25 am Eastern Time Phil predicted that winter is set to continue, based on the old German superstition that if a hibernating animal casts a shadow on Candlemas (February 2nd) then winter will last 6 more weeks.
Since the records began Phil has seen his shadow 97 times and hasn’t seen it 15 times. Despite what the official website says about Phil’s accuracy, it is reported to be around 39% so he’s not much better than Michael Fish (the UK’s animal weather forecaster).
In Houston, groundhogs are apparently not reliable enough (“Texas is too big for a mere groundhog to predict its weather” says one source) so in past years they’ve had Meerkats, Willie the Spectacled Bear, a Guinea Hog (no, I don’t know what that is either) and Tuck the Southern Three Banded Armadillo (who is shown in the picture above) all performing this important meteorological service.
This year it seems they haven’t bothered, relying instead on Phil. Clearly Phil has never been to Houston though, as its currently in the 60s (15C+ for those who’ve adopted the metric system) and sunny and likely to be so all week. No sign of winter here...