Pa. groundhog 'predicts' 6 more weeks of winter

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. — Pennsylvania's famous groundhog Punxsutawney Phil has emerged from his lair and saw his shadow, in the process predicting six more weeks of winter.

But, at this rate, that might not be so bad.

The groundhog made his "prediction" on Gobbler's Knob, a tiny hill in the town for which he's named about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.

Temperatures were near freezing when he emerged 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.

Thursday's ceremony is largely that: Phil's prediction is determined ahead of time by the Inner Circle, a group which dons top hats and tuxedos and decides in advance 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.

The celebration turnout was likely to be helped by weather expected to be partly sunny and nearly 14 degrees above normal. The average early-morning temperature usually hovers around 17 degrees, but on Thursday morning it was expected to be closer to 31 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett was among the spectators this year.

Phil has seen his shadow 99 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.

Generally speaking, unseasonably warm temperatures can make groundhogs and other wildlife more active in winter, said Pennsylvania Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser, noting that it's easier to find food when there aren't several layers of snow and ice on the ground.

"Hibernation is a way of getting away from it all in a harsh winter," Feaser said. "But if you have a mild winter ... they don't necessarily need to worry about it as much."

But in reality, Punxsutawney Phil doesn't see much of anything. The prediction is decided in advance by about 15 members of the Inner Circle, who don tuxedos and top hats for the event.

The tradition attained a large following with the 1993 Bill Murray comedy "Groundhog Day," in which a weatherman covering the event must relive the day over and over again. Before the movie came out, Phil was lucky to have an audience of 2,500, said Mike Johnston, vice president of the Inner Circle.

And while the group has records of Phil's predictions dating back to 1886, what it doesn't have is a tally of whether Phil was right.

Johnston said the reason is simple: "He's never been wrong." Phil is "incapable of error," he said, because the groundhog smartly avoids being site-specific in his prognostications.

If Phil predicts six more weeks of winter, said Johnston, "I guarantee you someone's going to have six more weeks of winter."

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