On Thursday morning, Punxsutawney Phil — the weather-predicting marmot from Pennsylvania — was surrounded by a large crowd while he predicted six more weeks of winter.
The morning leading up to Phil’s big reveal was full of singing, dancing and celebrating the groundhog “seer,” as reported by The Associated Press. The celebration was one of tradition, as his “inner circle” of caregivers wore top hats and suits with boutonnieres. It was quite the affair for a morning of low 13-degree weather.
Groundhog Day — or something like it — has been celebrated for centuries. The tradition made it to the United States in 1886 from a German Christian tradition called “Candlemas” which was created even earlier by the Romans, per The Philidelphia Inquirer.
The folktale is that if the groundhog sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter, and if he doesn’t, spring will come six weeks early.
But it raises the question, how accurate is the groundhog’s prediction?
Over the years, Phil has predicted six more weeks of winter the majority of the time and has been accurate only 40% of the time in the last 10 years, said the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in a statement in a press release from the United States Census Bureau.
But with cold weather hitting across the United States and a big storm hitting the South and central parts of the U.S. this week, maybe Phil is onto something.