Groundhog Day
It’s Groundhog Day and some of the militant marmots object to being disturbed.
FYI: this is approximately the midpoint between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. It is called Imbolc among the Celts, which is why people are interested.
Update: from the CBC, Shubenacadie Sam predicts a long winter, but Ontario’s Wiarton Willie and Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil both predicted an early end to winter. “According to a Canadian study looking at the past 30 years, groundhogs only accurately predicted the long-term forecast about 37 per cent of the time.” IOW – coin flipping is more accurate.
4 comments
No groundhogs showed their nose around here. I think it’s because they are not aquatic mammals ;).
This is a German ‘thing’ and it should be badgers [Dachs] not marmots/groundhogs. Euro badgers are not quite the bad tempered killing machines that the US animal of the same name tend to be.
It is counter intuitive that seeing a shadow would indicate more winter, as logically the sun makes things warmer. That may account for the dismal accuracy. If you reverse the indicator, the marmots would be right 63% of the time.
If the groundhog sees it’s shadow – 6 more weeks of winter
If the groundhog does NOT see it’s shadow – winter will last for about a month and a half.
I may have those reversed.
If you go along with whatever the handlers think the groundhog decided, you’d be right 1/3 of the time; if you flipped a coin, you’d be right half the time; and if if did the opposite, you’d be 2/3 of the time. But we do this every year…